Consequences
by SGE
Summary: Sequel to Blood in the Night and you should probably read that first. AU after season 1. Mitchell sets out to seek revenge on Professor Jadat but finds more than he bargained for. Meanwhile, George and Nina receive an unexpected visitor.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is the final part of the _Blood in the Night_ trilogy. It's set after season 1, and is now totally AU for season 2, but what the heck! The story needed a conclusion.

Expect the usual strong language, bit of violence and angst. Thanks for reading!

**Disclaimer: **Being Human and all its lovely characters belong to Toby Whithouse. No infringement is intended, and certainly no financial benefit is being made.

---

"Um, George."

"Yes, Mitchell?"

"How exactly did you just take that pawn?"

"What – this one?"

"Yes, that pawn you just took off the board. You can't just decide to take a pawn because you fancy it. It's generally regarded as rude."

"It's en passent."

"I beg your pardon?"

"En passent. It means, in passing."

"Yes, I know what it means. I did live in Paris for two years."

"Did you? I didn't know that!"

"And giving it some fancy French name doesn't change the fact that you just stole my pawn."

"Stole your pawn? I've never heard anything so ridiculous. That's a perfectly legitimate move. I can't believe that a man who's been playing chess for almost 100 years has never heard of en passent."

"Yeah, well, I don't normally play with cheats," Mitchell muttered, sensing defeat and putting his chin into his hand.

George sighed. "Just play the game, Mitchell."

"Anyway, I told you, I haven't played in about 30 years," Mitchell moped, moving his bishop and completely missing the impending danger to his king.

"Hm, it shows," George said, missing nothing, and getting his queen into play. "Check. So why haven't you played? Too busy biting people?"

"Something like that," Mitchell replied, lazily moving his king out of danger. His gaze wandered up to his companion, who was watching the board like a hawk, his eyes darting here and there, looking for opportunities, strategizing the best moves.

Four months had passed since a crazy scientist with a God-delusion had locked the two of them together in a cell; four months in which nothing much had happened except that time had slipped along with a tick tick precision. Three moons had waxed and waned and the fourth hung swollen in the sky, threatening its monthly torment. But for now, all was quiet, and nothing within their humble three up, two down would have raised any suspicion of the supernatural in all but the most observant of visitors.

Mitchell noticed that George was idly playing with the two tiny scars on his neck where he'd bitten him, stroking his fingers over them, worrying them. It was a move Mitchell saw him make a lot these days when he was concentrating. George was after all a very tactile person, it was as if his hands needed to be touching something at all times. Now they had a new play thing.

He moved his rook.

"Why did you want to play, anyway?" Mitchell asked, looking at the board again. "That set's been sitting there since we moved in, and you've never asked me before."

If he'd been looking at his housemate, he would have seen the vaguest flicker of emotion crease his face. But he wasn't, and he didn't.

"Oh, I just wanted to do something that I really enjoyed today," George explained dismissively.

"What's special about today?" Mitchell asked, reaching his hand out to move a piece.

George smiled. "Nothing," he said a little wistfully. "It's just another day."

"Tea?" Annie said, coming through the string curtain from the kitchen with a couple of steaming mugs.

"Annie, have you heard of en passent?" George questioned her as she came up to their table.

"What?" she paused before them, not sure what she was being asked.

"En passent," he said again. "It's a move in chess that Mitchell hasn't heard of."

"Well, he's not the only one," she admitted, putting a mug down in front of each of them and moving round to sit on the couch beside Mitchell. "I've never played chess before in my life." She paused. "Or my death," she added.

"You've never played chess before?" Mitchell was incredulous.

"Well, excuse me for not being a geek," she protested.

"A geek!" George exclaimed.

Mitchell just smiled. "It's a good game," he said. "You should try it sometime." He moved to try to avoid the continuing danger of George's attack on his king

"Hm, think I have better things to do with my afterlife," she said, quickly losing interest and picking up the TV remote. She clicked it on.

"So when were you in Paris?" George asked Mitchell, moving his queen again. "Check."

"Oh, some time in the 1940s."

"1940s?" George looked up. "Like when Paris was occupied by Nazis?"

"Pretty much," Mitchell confirmed languidly, looking around the board. "Me and a couple of the others thought it would be an interesting time to visit. We kind of – badly misjudged things and ended up being stuck there for two years."

"But, how did you get away with it? Didn't people notice that you weren't French or – y'know – human?"

Mitchell glanced up at him. "We have contacts everywhere," he said, and moved his king again. "It wasn't too difficult to hide, just to travel around. Even vampires are no match for German efficiency."

"I'd love to see Paris," Annie said a little wistfully. The ghost was flicking through channels on the telly, eventually ending up on News 24 for lack of anything more exciting. She put the remote back down. "I guess I never will now."

"Why?" Mitchell turned to her curiously. "You can go anywhere you want. You could travel the world."

"Making tea wherever you go," George muttered quietly, wondering whether he should just check mate Mitchell, or allow the game to go on a little longer.

"Oh… no, I don't think so," Annie said.

"Why?" Mitchell asked again.

"I – like it here too much," she made up quickly, smiling.

"Really?" George said, without looking up from the board. "With the bad weather, the leaky roof, and housemates who bring death and destruction on your head on a regular basis?" He flicked her a glance and looked back at the board. "Checkmate," he said, having decided that the game had gone on long enough already.

Mitchell looked back over. "Oh," he said. "Well. Good game."

"You too," George said, not really meaning it. "You're not as bad as you think you are."

"Well as I said," Mitchell repeated himself. "I haven't really played in ages." He turned back to the ghost. "Now, Annie…" he started, but then he broke off, staring at the TV.

The others followed his gaze.

"What is it?" Annie wondered. The report was showing a segment that seemed to be coming from a lab somewhere. Scientists wearing plastic glasses and white coats were syringing liquids into little bottles. The words: "Breakthrough discovery" sat at the bottom of the screen.

"Turn it up," Mitchell commanded. Then when no one did anything, he repeated himself. "Annie, turn it up."

"Oh," she grabbed the remote and unmuted the sound.

"…is attending a conference of his peers in Edinburgh this week to discuss the applications of the drug, which it's hoped will make it through the final stages of clinical testing later next year." The report was saying.

"Mitchell, what is it?" George wondered, slightly alarmed by his housemate's intense gaze at the TV screen.

But the vampire ignored him, watching.

"Mitchell?"

"Sh!" he waved his hand in George's direction to get him to be quiet, as the camera zoomed in on the presenter.

"And we can talk now to Professor Jadat, the mastermind behind this incredible discovery."

The camera panned to her right, and Mitchell sat up sharply as the man's face was revealed.

"Did she just say…" George began, but then the man on the screen started to speak, and he cut himself off.

"Yes, we've been working on this now for quite some time," he said. "Probably ten years or so, so it's certainly not something that's just come about over night, but we're extremely pleased with the way these most recent tests have been going, and if the clinical trials confirm our own research, it could certainly be a big step forward in finding a cure to certain auto-immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and arthritis."

"This is obviously a huge step forward for modern science," the interviewer said. "But when do you think the drug will actually be available for practical use against these conditions?"

"Well, drug trials are usually a lengthy and drawn-out process, but if everything turns out as planned, I think we can look forward to seeing this rolled out sometime late next year."

"Professor Jadat, thank you for your time today," the presenter turned back to the camera, all neat bob and carefully selected jewellery. "Sally, back to you."

There was a short silence in the room, as the news programme moved onto sport, and Annie hit the mute button again.

The ghost turned to look at her two housemates. "Was that – am I right in thinking that that's the man - ?" she asked.

"That's the bastard that put us in a room together at a full moon," Mitchell growled, dangerously.

George was shocked. "He looks remarkably alive," he said. "I thought they were all killed? I thought you said the vampires killed them all?" he looked at Annie.

"We thought they had," she protested. "But Mitchell…"

She broke off and George looked between the two of them. "Mitchell, what?" he demanded.

"I thought he might have escaped," Mitchell admitted.

"What!" George exclaimed. "Why didn't anyone tell me this?"

"You were sick. Besides, what would you have done?" Mitchell asked him. "And I didn't have any proof of it anyway, it was just a feeling I had."

George made a few indignant noises, before coming out with: "Well, you could have told me your suspicions. I thought all the danger was past."

"It was," Mitchell dismissed his argument. "He wasn't going to come after us again, not with what happened."

"But from what he just said," Annie broke in. "You said he was experimenting, that he was using supernaturals to come up with medical cures."

"Yeah, and it looks like he's been successful," Mitchell looked less than thrilled at the idea. "Bastard! How many deaths has he caused to come up with his fantastic discovery? How many people has he just used and thrown aside like wet towels?"

"What are you going to do?" George asked him, warily.

Mitchell looked him in the eye. "I don't know," he admitted. "But he's out there walking and talking and getting accolades after putting us through hell. That's not a punishment! What he did to us was diabolical, it was cruel, and I'm saying that as someone who knows cruelty. And all in the name of 'science'? Well fuck that!" He got to his feet and paced to the other side of the room. His two housemates watched him, wary of his tension and of his sudden sense of purpose. "I think we should pay him a visit," Mitchell said eventually, looking at George.

"What, now?"

Mitchell nodded. "He's in Edinburgh they said, so we know where he is. He's obviously been keeping his head right down for the last few months, because I looked for him, I looked for him hard and I couldn't find a trace of him anywhere. We need to get to him now, before he goes to ground again."

George was shaking his head. "No, no way," he protested.

"Oh come on, George! That man tried to make you kill me! And if you'd made it until morning, he'd made it very clear to me that he was going to put you down, like you were so much of an animal to him. You think someone like that is going to give two seconds thought about doing the same to someone else? You think he's given up the idea of experimenting on people and is doing everything for the good of humanity?"

"Yes, but be that as it may," George said firmly. "It's a full moon in two days, and I'm not taking the risk of being involved. If I end up transforming somewhere that I don't have control of, it could be a disaster! If you insist on going after him now, I can't come with you."

Mitchell considered him, angry, breathing hard. "Fine," he said eventually, moving abruptly into the hallway. He tore his coat off the hook and grabbed his keys out of his pocket. "I'll find someone who will." And with that, he pulled the door open and left, slamming it behind him as he went.

George sat with his mouth open for a few seconds, and turned to look at Annie to see if she shared his shock. She just smiled back, nervously, and shrugged her shoulders.


	2. Chapter 2

When Mitchell came home about two hours later, the two had set up camp in the kitchen, hands wrapped around cups of tea, and they looked up with interest as the door closed.

Mitchell wandered into the kitchen and met their curiosity with a blank stare, going to the fridge for a beer.

"Well?" Annie asked him.

"Well what?" he shot back, closing the fridge door, and leaning his back to it.

"Are you still planning to go after this Jadat person?"

"Yup," he said, hitting the beer lid off against the counter and taking a swig.

George winced at the thought of the potential damage done to the counter edge by the move, but managed to restrain himself from complaining. "And are you going alone?" he said.

"Nope," Mitchell said. "I'm taking Arlie." And left, taking his beer with him.

"Arlie?" George muttered. "Who the hell is Arlie?"

"Oh, he's this vampire friend of Mitchell's," Annie said. "One of the old Herrick gang I think. He's one of the vampires that came up to that warehouse to help Nina and me when we came to get you guys out."

"So you've met him?" George asked her.

"Well… I talked to him briefly," she hedged.

"And what did he seem like?"

"Seem like, George?"

"Yes, was he a nice guy, well not nice, but you know what I mean. Was he all vampirey?"

"They're all mostly vampirey. They're vampires."

"Yes, but you know what I mean," he persisted.

"No, I don't think I do."

"Is he," George explained, lowering his voice and checking to see that Mitchell wasn't about to come back in the room. "Is he the type of person who's going to… you know… lead Mitchell astray?"

Annie looked disdainful. "He's not a child, George, he's a hundred years old. I think he can take care of himself."

"Yes but – the blood lust," George persisted. "It's a strong urge, Annie. If Mitchell spends too much time with another vampire, particularly if he's going on a mission of – of revenge like this. Well. What if he goes back to being like he was before? What if he goes back to killing?"

"Oh, I don't think that's going to happen!"

"You should go with him," he stated.

"What?"

"To Edinburgh. Go with them; make sure that nothing goes wrong. Keep him on the straight and narrow. Like – that little cricket in Pinocchio."

"I can't leave Bristol," Annie exclaimed, thoroughly shocked by the suggestion. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"Well why not? You heard was Mitchell said. You can go anywhere now, it's all about confidence Annie. And it's not like you'd be on your own, you'd be with Mitchell."

"You're – you're crazy," she protested. "You don't know what you're asking me!"

"I'm asking you to be there for Mitchell," he insisted. "I'm asking you to help him. If I could go, I would, but I can't. It's just too risky this close to a transformation. But you, you could help stop him from going back to being a killer."

"No," she shook her head and got to her feet, clearly upset. "You all ask too much of me. Sometimes you just have to admit when you have limits and stick to them." She vanished without further comment.

George sighed, deeply. "Well," he said to himself. "That went well."

---

When the knock came on the door the following morning, it was George who answered it.

"Hi!"

The man was tall, blonde, and wearing a suit jacket with black jeans and a dark blue shirt, open at the neck. He had a patterned eye-patch over his right eye that detracted nothing from his natural and boyish good looks, in fact, if anything, it enhanced them in a sort of oddly sympathetic way. He was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe and smiling.

George just stared at him, open mouthed, sudden memories of blood and pain and being helpless in the dark shooting through him.

The man's smile widened. "Well, Lucky? You going to let me in, or are you on guard duty?"

George tried to get his voice to work. "What are – you doing here?" he demanded, in a tone that had all the aggression of a piece of lettuce.

"Oh I'm Arlie," the vampire said. "I'm here for Mitchell. Is he about?"

George blinked at him, still not moving.

Arlie pointed at his face. "I see you're all healed up. No hard feelings by the way. Just one of those things."

George's expression tightened and he stepped back into the house. "Mitchell!" he called up the stairs. "Your _friend_ is here." Then he turned to move away.

"Hey!" Arlie called after him. "You have to invite me in you know."

George turned back. "No," he said quietly. "I don't." And he walked away, leaving the door semi-open and Arlie standing on the other side.

The vampire just chuckled at his belligerence.

Mitchell stumbled down the stairs, carrying a black leather bag. He looked around the room and saw George dropping onto the couch and picking up a newspaper, but no one else. Confused, Mitchell pulled the door further open.

"Arlie!" he said in welcome. "What the hell you doing out there man? Come in, come in."

At the invitation, Arlie stepped over the threshold and into their house. George barely glanced up at him from his paper, purposefully ignoring the proceedings.

"So," Arlie said to Mitchell, giving the werewolf an amused glance. "You all ready to go?"

"I'm all set if you are," Mitchell affirmed. "Oh, you said that thing to the others? About George and Nina?"

At that, George looked up sharply. "What thing about George and Nina?" he demanded.

"I just warned them off you," Mitchell explained. "If I'm not here, some of them might feel it's the perfect time to have a go at you. I just wanted to make sure that they were aware there would be consequences if they do."

George looked offended and prim, and glanced down at his paper again.

"All done," Arlie said. "I told 'em you'd ring bloody hell out of them if anyone so much as winked at a lyco in the next few days."

"Great." Mitchell said. Then muttered: "Let's see if that works." He turned to his housemate once more. "George, you sure you won't come? Last chance."

"No thank you," George said. He looked up finally. "But good luck," he said, putting the paper down. "I mean that Mitchell. I hope you get him."

Mitchell smiled at him. "I know." He turned back to Arlie. "So," he said. "Scotland here we come."

Arlie clapped him on the back. "It's been a while," he said. "Wonder if I can remember the lingo."

As the two of them laughed and moved towards the door, there was a sudden movement on the stairs, and they turned at the sight of Annie appearing.

"Hey," Arlie said. "I'd forgotten you had a ghost." He leaned closer to Mitchell "She is quite an apparition," he muttered.

Mitchell smiled, then spoke to Annie. "We're just off," he said. "So I'll see you in a couple of days."

"Right," she said, coming down the stairs more fully. "Only I'm coming with you."

"You're what?" he said.

"You're what?" Arlie demanded.

"Coming with you," she said again. "I thought you could use some company, and I've never been to Edinburgh, so…"

"Are you sure you want to?" he said, his brown eyes crinkling with concern, and he took a couple of steps towards her. "After what you were saying the other night…"

"No, you were right," she said, glancing round at George, who'd gotten off the couch and was coming over to them. "I need to try going to different places, and – I thought this was the perfect time to start."

"Okay," Mitchell glanced at Arlie. "Well. Great! It'll be good to have you there. You alright with that?" he said to the other vampire.

"Yeh, whatever," he shrugged, clearly not thrilled, but acting as though it didn't bother him.

"Well then," Mitchell gestured at the door. Arlie marched out, tugging at his jacket in an odd expression of annoyance.

The three housemates stood and had a moment together. They shared a look, a smile, a nod, then Mitchell and Annie moved to the door and through it out into the world beyond.


	3. Chapter 3

A cacophony of noises screamed through the hospital corridors: beeping from automated drip dispensers and heart monitors; voices of patients and doctors and nurses; the clatter of trolleys; and even the terrible whine of a drill being forced through a stone wall somewhere not too far in the distance. Added to that were the smells: dinner being served (a meat stew probably, with fish cakes as the less popular and therefore slightly less over-powering stench), shot through with antiseptic and almost every bodily fluid that you could care to mention.

Nina rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

This was now her seventh full moon since being infected with the werewolf curse. But the familiarity of the situation seemed to do nothing to dispel the unpleasantness of feeling her humanity being over-ridden with animalistic tendencies once a month. George always said that he was just used to being in the hospital when it was like this. But Nina couldn't get comfortable with it. She knew which women around her were menstruating, she could smell who hadn't had a shower that morning and who had eaten garlic the night before. People weren't supposed to be able to do this! It wasn't right!

She stopped still at the surge of anger, and took a few deep breaths. This at least she was learning to control, she had to, or she was going to end up hitting one of her patients. Now, every time she felt the uncontrollable rage rising in her guts, she would just deal with it, stuff it down, let it prowl around in her innards for as long as it wanted. But she had come to an understanding with her anger that whatever it did, and however much it growled, she wasn't going to let it out.

As she was standing there taking deep breaths and trying not to think how much of an idiot she looked going all Zen in the middle of a hospital corridor, an altogether different sensation crept over her. She felt the little hairs on the back of her neck rise up, and was actually aware of her pupils dilating behind closed eyelids, a warm glow spreading through her body. It was extremely pleasurable, and she opened her eyes to see where George was, because he was near. She could smell him. She could almost taste him.

He'd appeared down the corridor talking to one of the nurses, a tallish chap named Gary, and nodding as the guy asked him to do something. Nina focussed in on Gary touching George's arm lightly in thanks, and then he walked away in the other direction, while her boyfriend started coming towards her. She saw him look up, clearly realizing that she was there, and he smiled, broadly.

"Hey you," she said as he came up.

"Hey you," he said back, leaning down and kissing her. Normally they held off on any such show of affection at work, but at this time of the month, all the rules had a habit of going out the window. "What are you smiling about?" George wondered, leaning back and looking at her.

"Oh, just looking forward to tonight," she commented, running her hands down his arms.

"Really?" George tried to sound nonchalant. "You got plans tonight?"

"Oh, indeed I do," she confirmed, and took a small step further towards him, lowering her voice to a sort of husky purr. "The whole house to ourselves."

His grin matched hers suddenly. "While the vamp and ghost's away?"

"The werewolves can play," she finished, taking two handfuls of his scrubs and pulling him closer.

"What did you have in mind?" he asked, putting his arms around her and his hands on the back of her hips.

"How about," she muttered. "We mess up every room in the house this time?"

His eyebrows went up. "Every room?" he said. "Even Mitchell's?"

She paused, thinking of the state of the vampire's bed, his underwear on the floor. "Maybe not Mitchell's room."

"Well, I'm planning one hell of a meal," he put in.

"Really?"

"Mm, rib eye steaks…"

"Say no more," she cut in, leaning up to kiss him hungrily. He kissed her back, moving his hands slowly up to the back of her head, as she reached hers up to his face. Around them, the hospital moved to a blur, everything temporarily forgotten as they lost themselves in lust and want and need.

Then suddenly she felt him stop.

She put her head back, surprised. He was looking over her shoulder with an expression of absolute and total shock. Nina turned quickly, expecting to see a hospital administrator with a disapproving scowl on their face, or one of the senior doctors with a similar expression. Pretty much anything other than what she actually saw, in fact, which was a young girl, about her age, maybe slightly younger, strikingly beautiful and with long dark hair falling about her shoulders.

She was well dressed, expensively, but not in a showy way. It was just obvious that her bag was designer, and her coat hadn't come off the rack in Marks and Spencer.

Nina felt a stab of protectiveness suddenly, or maybe possessiveness would be a better word - it was something about the way this girl was looking at her boyfriend. The wolf in her sensed a threat.

"Hello George," the girl said with a polite smile.

George, for his part, made a few sounds that were clearly attempts to form some sort of word, but his shocked lips seemed incapable of putting anything recognisable together.

Then he managed: "J – Julia. Wh – wh – what are you doing here?"

"I was in the area," the girl said, shrugging slightly. "One of our offices has moved to Bristol permanently now, so they asked me to come and oversee a project for them for a couple of days. I thought I would pop in and see you. Since I was here."

"Uh," George's language abilities still hadn't caught up with the situation, and he shook his head slightly, clearly trying to force his brain to re-set. "Uh," he said again. "Nina," he spat out, then took a slight step to the side away from her. "This is, um, Nina," he said.

The girl smiled faintly, her eyes moving to Nina's face.

"Um, she's my – we're – um..."

"I think he's trying to tell you that I'm his girlfriend," Nina finished a little sharply, and held out her hand.

The other girl took a step forward to take it. "I'm Julia," she introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you," Nina managed, pumping her hand firmly, proud that she resisted the urge to dig her nails into Julia's soft and vulnerable wrist as she did so. "So, how do the two of you know each other?" she asked, looking back at George, clearly after a truthful explanation.

George for his part was looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him up and take him to some mythical place where situations like this never happened.

He looked down, unable to meet her eyes. "We were…" he mumbled, rubbing his forehead, but determined to get through a sentence. "Julia was my, uh, she's my, ex – fiancée."

Nina's eyebrows went up just a smidge at that, but she recovered well. "Oh," she turned back, her possessiveness now in overdrive. "When was that?"

Julia seemed to sense the discomfort she was causing, but without an obvious exit strategy, she had no choice but to soldier on. "Oh, years ago," she said. "We met at university. But it all ended a long time ago now." Her eyes fixed on George again; he was still looking at the floor.

Nina looked between them, wondering what had happened to break them up finally. She knew that George had had a fiancée, Mitchell had told her that by accident. And he'd also said that George had run away from her, and his family, after he'd changed for the first time, his fear of hurting those closest to him overriding his need for their love in his life. But what had he told them: the truth, or just disappeared in the night?

But here she was: this girl from his past. She knew where he lived and where he worked. It didn't seem like he'd run away completely, whatever Mitchell might think. But then, from the way the girl was looking at him, a deep pain obviously existed between them, something terrible. Something irreparable.

The edges of Nina's lips curled ever so slightly upwards

Julia cleared her throat. "I, um, I wanted to give you this, anyway," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out an envelope. She handed it to George, who took it awkwardly. "And to say that it would be good to see you maybe, have a meal or something while I'm here." She looked at Nina quickly. "With both of you, obviously, I'm just here as a friend. Um. How about tomorrow?"

"Oh, tomorrow's not that great," Nina said, her smile becoming more pronounced.

George looked over at her finally seeming to sense her heightened mood. Then he looked at Julia, and his eyes narrowed, angry that she was causing this rift after all this time.

"It's a full moon," he stated shortly.

"Oh," Julia's face flushed with embarrassment. "Gosh, sorry." She shut her eyes. "I didn't think…"

"So, we'll _both_ be a little engaged," Nina went on, realizing that whatever else this girl knew, she knew what George was. Might as well throw her hat into the ring.

Julia opened her eyes and her expression turned to one of surprised curiosity. "So you're a…"

"I am," Nina confirmed quickly without saying the actual word.

"Is – is that how you met?" Julia seemed to be attempting politeness with that question, maybe imagining that werewolves had some sort of dating service on the Internet, or met up in moon-themed pubs to swap stories of wild nights in the wood. But all she succeeded in doing was cranking up the air of tension another few notches.

"No I – " George considered how best to explain this. Not that there was a good way. "We were dating for a while and - I scratched Nina by accident, and that infected her."

"Oh," Julia said.

"But it was an accident," Nina re-iterated firmly. "And now we're fine."

"Right."

George saw the expression on Julia's face and he knew clearly what she was thinking, as though he had plucked the thought from her brain.

_That's what would have happened to me. _

And his anger towards her turned to hatred. In that moment, he found himself hating everything about her: the slightly snooty sense of superiority, her neat clothes and £100 hair cut, the diamond studs that gleamed from her ears. And for a moment too, he rejected her world, the world he himself had come from, a world that had meant everything to him just a few short years ago, and which he would never have dreamed of leaving until his encounter with the werewolf.

"Yeah," he said, slightly harshly, but finding his ability to speak again now that he had a purpose to the conversation. "So, it's probably not going to be a good idea to meet up," he said. "Maybe next time you're in town?"

"But she could come before," Nina said sweetly, turning to him. "We could have an early dinner. How would that be?" she addressed the question to Julia.

"That would be, uh, fine," she said, clearly lying, but now stuck with this course of events. "An early dinner suits me even better."

George opened his mouth to protest, but Nina just barrelled right over the top of his protests.

"Shall we say half five then? We'll need to be done at about half seven at the latest."

"Okay."

"Here," Nina said, feeling in her pockets for a bit of paper and pulling a pen out of George's top pocket. "I'll give you the address and phone number."

Julia smiled faintly, glancing shyly at George as Nina scribbled down the details. But her ex-fiancé, very aware of her eyes on him, was looking purposefully elsewhere.

"There you go."

She accepted it gratefully. "Thank you," she looked at it and noted the address, then fished something out of a pocket. "Here's my card in case you need to contact me." She handed it to George, who glanced at it.

"You've still got the same number," he said, absently.

"Yeah, well you know me," she said. "Creature of habit." Then she cleared her throat and looked between the two werewolves. "It was – good to see you again," she said to George, by way of a farewell.

"Yeah, you too," he said too fast and without feeling, squeezing the envelope she'd given him so that it bent at the edges.

"Nice to meet you," Nina said, smiling as realistically as she could.

"You too," Julia replied, slowly rotating herself round, and then walking away down the corridor without a backwards glance.


	4. Chapter 4

Annie felt like a child again. Being back on a train for the first time in years, watching a world she'd almost forgotten, whizzing past was magical, and she sat transfixed as the trees and fields and hedgerows marched along beside them.

Mitchell watched her, his lips curled into a gentle smile at her obvious joy, so glad to see her enjoying herself for once. But he was also distracted with a pleasure of his own.

Lacking the silvered material that prevented him reflecting in mirrors or showing up in photographs, the train's windows were doing a remarkable job at showing him what he looked like almost a hundred years after he'd fixed a cracked fragment of mirror onto a muddy piece of wood to help him shave while bombs whistled overhead. He was as transfixed by that as Annie was by the outside world, and distracted, the two travelled for an hour without saying a word or even noticing that time was slipping by.

When Annie finally turned away from the window, Mitchell was staring at her, still smiling, looking more relaxed than Annie had seem him in weeks.

His scrutiny made her self-conscious, and with a small grin, she put her head down.

"What?" he said.

"Well, you're staring at me," she said, still not meeting his eyes.

"You looked happy," he said. "It's nice to stare at."

She glanced up shyly. "You were right," she said. "It is fantastic to be out again like this."

"Yeah?"

Annie nodded enthusiastically. "I've been in the city for so long, I'd forgotten how beautiful the countryside could look," she enthused. "There's just all that sky, and the little fields and the animals." She looked back out the window again. "It's a beautiful world, Mitchell. It really is beautiful."

His grin widened. "Yeah, it is," he agreed, leaning forward and putting his forearms on the table. "So level with me," he said. She turned back. "You just here to see the sights, or is there some other reason you've come on this big adventure?"

"Why do you say that?" she asked, trying to look innocent.

"Well," he said, moving his head back and forwards slightly. "You certainly didn't seem that keen on going anywhere just one day ago. And it's not like you've expressed a huge desire to go to Scotland before. You've always said you wanted go abroad."

"Well – Scotland is abroad," she insisted.

"Nice try," he said.

She rolled her eyes at his suspicion. "Okay, there is another reason. George was worried that if we sent you off alone with Arlie you'd end up vamping out and sucking neck again," she confessed. "Which I said you totally wouldn't by the way. But I really thought you could just use the support. It's a difficult thing you're going to do. I wanted to be there for you."

He reached out and put his hand over hers. "And I appreciate that," he said sincerely. "I really do."

She smiled back, feeling that odd connection that she sometimes did with Mitchell, that something-beyond-friendship feeling that she didn't altogether understand, and shied away from exploring too closely for fear that it led somewhere there was no coming back from.

"Anyway," she said, shaking her head slightly and breaking the moment. "Where is Arlie? I haven't seen him in ages. He's not off smoking in the toilets or something, is he?"

"Possibly," Mitchell sat back again with a sigh, "Though I'd be more worried about him doing other stuff in the toilets to tell you the truth. But no, he went to the restaurant carriage about an hour ago. He's probably going to be raging drunk by the time we cross the border."

"And then what's the plan?" Annie asked. "Are we just doing this thing tonight?"

Mitchell shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I think the big conference that this guy was going to is happening tomorrow, so I kind of think we try to see him after that. He'll be distracted, and we'll know exactly where he's going to be."

"I guess that means finding somewhere to spend the night then," Annie said.

"Ah, we'll find a hotel or something," Mitchell said. "Arlie's loaded, so I'm not worried about that."

"Really," Annie said, raising her eyebrows. "Loaded?"

Mitchell saw her expression and laughed. "Rich men do it for you, do they?" he said.

She smiled. "Well, it always does to keep your options open," she replied.

"Yeah," Mitchell's laughter faded, and his expression became more serious as he held her gaze. "It does."

Annie blushed, and looked away again out the window.

But Mitchell didn't follow her example, his eyes remaining on her face.

---

"Well you didn't have to invite her to dinner! And on a full moon of all nights. What were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking?" Nina snapped back, struggling her way into her coat with angry movements. "I don't know, how about, this is my boyfriend's ex-fiancée that he's never even told me about. Why don't I invite her to tea so that I can find out a bit more about her, because he's never going to tell me anything!"

George was too angry to feel sheepish. "You didn't need to know about her. It's not like she's a part of my life any more."

"She's your ex-fiancée, George, you were going to marry her."

"Yes, thank you, I am aware of that."

"What I mean is, she was an important part of your life once. You can't just ignore that."

"You're partly right," he said, stopping and turning to her. "She was an important part of my life _once_. But that's dead to me now, all of that, friends, university, family, all of it gone. There's only this now."

"But why?" she demanded, totally exasperated. "Being what we are doesn't mean we have to cut ourselves off from the world."

"I'm not cutting myself off from the world!" he protested. "I have you, I have Mitchell and I have Annie. I have a full time job, and take occasional social excursions. I'm hardly a hermit."

"You're cutting yourself off from your old world," she elaborated. "It's like it doesn't exist to you. It's like you've had this… what I can only guess was a great life before you came here, and when this happened you gave it all up, and now you won't even talk about it. You don't even seem to want to think about it."

"Well would you?"

"It's different for me," she insisted, softening slightly. "I don't get on my with family, and getting away from my past is something that I've been trying to do for most of my life. But you, you obviously had people around you who cared about you deeply, who were important to you. And leaving them must have been soul destroying. But maybe you don't need to do that any more. Maybe you can go back. Maybe you can take back some of that old life."

George started walking again, saying nothing and Nina followed after him. She just didn't know what to make of it.

She could imagine him as he might have been before with that beautiful woman at his side setting up life together; him with a fantastic high-flying job, maybe in the foreign office, her at home with the kids and working part-time as a freelance journalist, or for the local MP. He'd lost it all, all that potential, and ended up here. She could understand why it was painful to think about all that, but that didn't mean he shouldn't.

"How does she know you're here anyway?" she asked, her anger dissipating slightly. "Did you tell her?"

George stopped walking, and sighed. They were near one of the main exits now, and it was chilly, wafts of cold air sucking the heat out whenever the doors slid open to let someone through. But it was reasonably quiet at this time of night, not too many people around to overhear their conversation.

"She found me," he said. "By accident. She has – epilepsy and she was visiting Bristol a bit over a year ago now and had a seizure. She was in the hospital recovering and she saw me. She'd thought I was dead, so it was a bit of a shock."

"You let her think you were dead?" Nina said, disapproving and incredulous at the level of deception he'd obviously exercised to disappear.

"I just left," he protested. "I didn't fake my death or anything. I just – woke the morning after I first changed, found some clothes, sold my car for whatever I could get and never went back. I thought they would think… I don't know what I thought."

"Sounds like you didn't care that much either," she spat, her anger growing again like a storm.

"How dare you!" he exclaimed. "You've no idea what I went through!"

"Oh really," she retorted. "Having had nothing like a similar experience myself!"

"She rejected me!" he stated loudly and randomly, pointing in the vague and imaginary direction of his ex-fiancée. "When she found out what I was, what I had become, she walked away. I had thought we might even be able to get back together, but no. It was too much for her, she said. And I haven't heard from her since. For Christ's sake, I've no idea why she's come back now!"

"Well, we'll find out tomorrow, won't we," Nina stated, zipping up her jacket. "What did she give you anyway? What was that envelope?"

George looked down. He still had the envelope in his back pocket, unopened. "It's nothing," he mumbled.

Nina was rightly incredulous. "And you know this without even opening it?"

George fidgeted uncomfortably. He knew exactly what was in the envelope. He also knew that revealing it would open another can of worms.

What the hell. They were already fighting.

"It's a birthday card," he stated quietly.

Nina's eyebrows shot up. "It's a what now?"

He sighed and fished it out of his pocket, ripping open the envelope unceremoniously. Inside was a card with a cartoon elephant on the front and the words Happy Birthday! emblazoned with superficial cheer across the top. She'd written simply "To George" and "From Julia" inside.

"A birthday card," he said again, holding it up as proof.

"It's your birthday?" she said, every syllable dripping with barely contained fury.

"Yesterday," he admitted.

Nina took a breath, and shut her eyes. "We've been going out all this time," she said. "And you didn't even tell me that it was your birthday?"

He shrugged. "I haven't celebrated my birthday since I left home - " he said, fading out as she started to walk away from him.

"Right."

"There didn't seem any point!" he protested, going after her. "Not with the life I was living."

She stopped walking,

He'd been expecting a more vigorous reaction somehow, some righteous indignation or jealousy or something. Anything. Not the quietly understated anger. Not this.

Nina didn't take the conversation further. "I'll see you later," she said, without any attempt to kiss him or touch him, and walked away towards the door without looking back.

George watched her go, his own anger being slowly overgrown and then completely smothered out by despondency. And he felt his world sag, as though he was wearing the weight of all his troubles and all hers combined, as a terrible burden.

"George!"

He glanced round, and saw the hospital chaplain approaching him fast, and for a second or two, his weight of worries threatened to overwhelm him and crush him to the floor. But then he straightened up and waited patiently for Mark to reach him.

"I'm glad I caught you," Mark said, slightly breathless after what had clearly been a speedy walk to catch up to him, but still smiling. Then the chaplain saw Nina walking away, and noticed the look on George's face. He smile faded a bit. "Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Fine, thank you," George said, a little tersely, but as civil as he could manage. He glanced round just in time to see Nina disappearing out of the doors. Then he focussed his attention on the priest. "How about you. How have you been?"

"Busy, always busy," Mark's smile returned.

"No rest for the wicked," George muttered.

"Mm?"

"Oh, that must be wicked," George came up with. "For you. For priests I guess, being busy is a – a good thing."

Mark looked a little confused. "Well, it depends," he said. "Sometimes yes, but then there are one or two things I have to do that I'd rather not be busy with."

"Like what?"

"Funerals for example," he said lightly.

"Ah."

"Not my favourite. But," he looked around furtively, and took a step closer to the porter. George was a little taken aback, but didn't move. "While we're on the subject of dead people…"

"Were we on the subject of dead people?" George wondered vaguely.

"I was wondering," Mark went on, ignoring him. "If we could talk about something a little bit," he glanced around again. "Supernatural?"

George groaned inwardly. This was all he needed. "Like what?"

"Like, ghosts specifically."

"What about them?"

"Well, I was wondering if you – type of people knew whether ghosts were actually – if they existed."

"And by 'you type of people' you mean?"

"Howls at the moon type…"

"Right. Well, I can put you out of your misery, yes, ghosts actually exist."

"Really, they're actually really real?"

"Yup, but you won't be able to see them, or not most of them anyway."

"Oh," Mark looked vaguely disappointed. "Why not?"

"Because you don't – howl at the moon," George told him. "Look, why are you asking me about ghosts anyway?"

"No reason," Mark said as a throw away comment. "Other than I think I'm being haunted."

"Really," George was intrigued. "You make a lot of enemies in your line of work?"

"Enemies?"

"Mm, from my little experience of ghosts, they generally only haunt you if you've done something to really piss them off. Generally when they were alive people instead of dead people."

"Oh I see. And you hang around with lots of ghosts?"

"I know one or two, yes. What makes you think you're being haunted?"

Mark shrugged. "Just a feeling. That and things moving around my office."

"Over-ambitious cleaner?" George suggested mildly, looking over at the door again and having serious thoughts about going after Nina. Maybe this night could still be salvaged if he begged her forgiveness.

Then he realized that Mark was looking at him expectantly, and had probably just said something to him that he'd totally missed.

"Oh, sorry, I'm – you're catching me on a bad night," he admitted.

"No that's fine," Mark said, clearly thinking he was being fobbed off.

"I had a fight with my girlfriend," George explained further. "I'm just going to go and see if I can catch her before she storms off too far. But we can talk more about your – problem later."

He turned and headed for the door at an ambitious trot, turning when he was about halfway there, and moving backwards while speaking.

"Have you thought about an exorcism?" he called back.

"You mean that actually works?"

"Give it a try," George suggested.

"I've never done one before," Mark told him.

George shrugged. "Might be worth it," he said, lifting his hand in farewell, and then heading towards the door.

Mark stood there, watching him go. His life seemed to be much more complicated than it had been a year ago. Ignorance is bliss they say, and they're not far off when it came to knowledge of the sort he had kicking around his brain these days. Of course, it was part of his job to believe in things that others took to be make believe. But religion had always made him feel something, feel a closeness with God, a connectedness. He felt it in his gut, a glow, a sensation that he was not alone, that it was all real.

Whenever he was faced with George or Mitchell, however, there was no glow. There was nothing but his eyes to tell him that they were real, when they shouldn't be. In some ways, it made his belief stronger. Because people didn't believe in ghosts, vampires and werewolves. People, in fact, walked around every day with a very firm belief in their heads that these types of being definitely did not exist. The same as they did with the idea of God.

He smiled. Faith was an odd thing when you looked at it.

Someone said something to him then, and he looked around to see one of the nurses walking past.

"Father, could you pop in on Mrs Peters in room 776," she said. "She's feeling really down today, and none of her family have made it in to visit yet."

"Of course I will," he said. "776?"

She nodded. "Pulmonary ward."

"I'll go up in a bit," he said. "Thank you."

As she walked past, he turned again to look at the doors, thinking that George would now be long gone on the quest for his girlfriend. But as it was, George was still in sight standing just outside the door, with his head turned to the side slightly as though listening. Then Mark saw him turn, his eyes scanning, and he set off at a run, or more than a run, a sprint, a desperate dash.

Curiosity piqued, Mark walked quickly to the doors, which slid open when he approached, allowing freezing night air to assault his body. He saw George just disappearing off around the edge of the hospital, still in full flight. Mark looked around to see if anyone else had noticed his odd behaviour, but there was no one. He gulped.

"Ah well," he said quietly to himself. "No rest for the wicked." And he set off in pursuit.


	5. Chapter 5

George wasn't 100% sure, even afterwards looking back on the incident with a clinical eye, what it was that had alerted him to Nina's predicament. Truth be told, it probably wasn't one thing. One day before a full moon, his body had already changed so much in preparation, that he barely understood the implications. He recognised the changes to his senses of course, and perhaps it was that a sliver of a scream slid back to his keen ears on the night stillness. Or perhaps he smelt the whiff of fear that no human ever could; her fear, and with it the smell of vampire, that ever so slight hint of death and decay that clung to them like the remembrance of perfume.

Perhaps more than that though, was something beyond what humans would call a sense. There is in animals, a heightened sense of awareness that comes through hunting or being hunted, something that fat and slow ape descendents had long since lost. Animals just seemed to know when something unusual was happening, that a tiger was stalking them unseen in the long grass, or a storm was brewing on the horizon.

And so George was running before his brain had even logically put everything together. It was instinct, pure and simple, that overpowering necessity to protect the one he loved. And he pelted down the street, anger and rage fuelling him, a kernel of fear driving him faster.

Being closer of course just made it worse, as then he really could begin to identify the clear signs. The smell of her grew stronger, his mate, in trouble. He could start to hear their taunts. It sounded so loud to his wolf ears that if he'd been more George-like at that moment, he would have wondered why no one else was going to her rescue, why no one else had heard what was going on.

But George was the only one with senses sharp enough to recognise the danger, and when he skidded into the alleyway at full pelt without even pausing to consider the consequences, it was somehow just the icing on the curious cake of his body, that his eyes confirmed what everything else had already informed him was true, and he went straight into an attack, as though he was a wolf on the hunt, an animal seeking its prey.

George grabbed the first vampire he came to by the arm and spun using his body weight and speed to hurl the creature at the brick wall of the alley, which he hit with a sickening crunch and sank to the ground not moving.

The other vampires turned quickly, and the one who had been holding Nina pinned to the wall by her throat, dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, where she lay winded and gasping.

George faced them with no fear, only an adrenalin-fuelled buzz of expectation. There were four vampires left standing before him and he didn't recognize any of them, but then that was hardly surprising given the number of these creatures in the city. They faced him with hunger in their eyes, knowing what he was, of course, sensing more fun and bloody entertainment, amused rather than angry at his attempts to fight back. But George had an edge on creatures of pure violence. Behind his werewolf charged body there was intelligence that none of them could ever hope to match, intelligence paired with experience.

As the first vampire made a grab for him, he snatched out his Star of David, and as the guy faltered away at the symbol of faith, he punched him hard enough to make him stagger backwards. The others seemed momentarily distracted by this movement, and he used their indecision to circle round them, still holding out his pendant to keep them back, and making his way to Nina.

"Are you alright?" he asked, sparing her the quickest of glances, as he tried to keep his eyes on the remaining vamps.

She was still holding her throat, clearly in pain, but she reached up as he held out a hand to her, and took it, allowing him to help her to her feet. Then he pushed her behind him.

"We just want to be left alone," he exclaimed to the vampires.

"What, you and your little pack?" one of them mocked him.

"Any puppies on the way?" another one laughed.

"Why don't you be a good boy and play dead," said a third, coming at him with a bit of wood.

The fury still throbbing in his soul, George dodged the attack and slammed bodily into the vampire, tackling him to the ground. The vamp flung him off, his strength greater, and George's pendant slipped from his hand and back under his shirt. They grappled, both of them on the ground, as Nina screamed George's name seeing him lose the upper hand, and the other vampires laughed in enjoyment. Then George's Star of David spun out into view, and the vampire flinched away, giving the werewolf all the excuse he needed to grab him and drive his head backwards into the pavement, hard.

How things would have gone is hard to say, but George was suddenly distracted by Nina crying out, and as he turned his head, he saw her fall to the ground at the feet of another vampire who had appeared behind her. Before George could do more than coil his feet underneath him in preparation to jump up and defend her, something struck him hard on the back of the head, and his world exploded into a shower of bright, and surprisingly tinkly stars.


	6. Chapter 6

Nina hadn't even heard the new vampire coming up behind them, and small surprise at that.

She'd been grabbed and shoved into the alleyway as she'd walked past, with no warning, and no chance of escape. At first she'd thought it a simple mugging, and as she was quickly divested of her bag, she thought the attack might be quick, and her assailants eager to leave her with their spoils before one of the nearby CCTV cameras picked them up and left a clear trail for the police to follow. But the thought vanished from her mind the moment the first vamp revealed his teeth and jet black eyes and called her a dog. They taunted her, pushing her backwards into the alleyway as she protested and tried to reason with them.

But that's what they wanted, of course, this was baiting. It was vampire entertainment. If she had been human, they would have probably taken her from the alley, or had they been over eager to feed, killed her there and then, arrogant in their display of disregard for the society in which they lived, and its rules and laws. But they'd known what she was as soon as she'd come close enough to smell. And that put their evening's activities into a different league. That meant sport.

They hadn't hurt her much before George had arrived, shoved her into the wall, bruised her throat with large, careless hands, but nothing she couldn't recover from. She hadn't even seen his initial attack, too winded, and at the wrong angle from her position on the cold ground. But when he'd made his way around to her, and held out his hand to help her up, her heart had sung.

She'd been amazed at the attack she had seen him make, the fury of it. Of course she knew the wolf, she knew what it could do. But this was George, and no matter how many times he changed in front of her, however many times she reminded herself what he was, to her, he was still that geeky guy who brought her flowers and stroked her hair as she fell asleep. This wasn't him. It was the beast that ruled him once a month.

When the new vampire hit her, she cried out with shock and surprise more than anything else, though certainly the stinging pain on her face was enough to convince her that she was going to have a hell of a black eye by morning. She tumbled to the ground hard, but had raised her head high enough to see one of the other vampires smash a bottle over her boyfriend's head with enough force to render him instantly unconscious.

As the world slowed down around her, she remembered screaming his name, and watching in horror as the other vampires moved in. He'd told her what they could do, how much they hated werewolves, and she knew he'd been badly beaten twice already. Was this it: the end of the line?

Then a voice rang out clear in the alleyway, slightly nervous and wavering, but booming none the less.

"Deliver me from mine enemies, o my God, defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men. Be not merciful unto them that offend of malicious wickedness. They grin like a dog and run about through the city. But thou, o Lord, shalt hold them in derision. Thou shalt laugh all the heathen to scorn!"

The vampires turned in shock, already pulling away in fear at the words being spoken and the power they sensed from whatever being was uttering them. As the figure came towards them, they started to retreat. The one behind Nina gave her a final kick, before turning and walking away, clearly trying to keep his dignity intact.

She turned to watch them go, then quickly spun back to face the figure of her saviour.

"You?" she exclaimed.

Mark looked terrified. He had a cross clutched in one hand, and a bible in the other, but he looked like a glass of whisky might have done him more good. He was shaking, and pale as moonlight, and seemed to barely realize that the danger was over.

Then George groaned and the moment was broken. Nina scrambled painfully to her feet and stumbled over to him. The vampire he'd been fighting with was gone, and he'd been left face down on the floor amid the shards of broken glass.

"Ow!"

She crouched down beside him, her hand going to the bloody wound on the back of his head.

"You're okay," she said, moving her hand to his back, and looking up at the chaplain. "Help me with him," she ordered, putting an arm underneath George in preparation to encourage him to his feet.

"Shouldn't we – call an ambulance or something," Mark suggested, realizing how ridiculous this sounded considering they were only about 100 metres from the hospital's main entrance. "Isn't moving someone who's been injured generally considered to be a bad idea?"

"Well, normally," she grunted pulling George up into a sitting position, "I'd agree with you." His head sagged, and he groaned, and she looked into his face worriedly. "But I really don't want to hang around here waiting for those vampires to change their minds and come back. Do you?"

Mark glanced down the alley to where the creatures of the night had disappeared. Then he stuffed his bible and cross quickly into his pockets, and reached down to pull George to his feet. "Maybe not," he agreed.

Nina scrambled up as well, but her height prevented her from being much use in supporting George, so she just fussed at his side as Mark set off.

As they passed the vamp that George had downed in his initial attack, he moaned and raised his head, clearly recovering from his injuries. Nina paused as Mark continued to the end of the alley, and on instinct, she crouched down in front of the creature, feeling a beastly, but contained rage fill her heart.

She tilted her head to the side as the vampire glared at her warily, his hand to his neck

"Tell your leader," she said quietly, every syllable dripping with anger. "Or whatever you creatures like to call the person calling the shots, that we are not here for your pleasure. Go back to sucking blood and leave us alone." And she got to her feet and walked away, with his eyes burning holes in her back.

---

"_Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching Edinburgh Waverley, where this service will terminate. Please make sure that you take all your belongings with you when departing the train…"_

"Hey,"

Mitchell looked up at the voice and saw Arlie making his way towards them along the train, pushing his way past travellers who were retrieving coats and bags from overhead luggage racks, and attempting to stuff sandwich wrappers into the tiny rubbish bins.

"Hey," he said quietly back, conscious of the sleeping ghost on his shoulder.

Arlie's eyebrows went up at the sight. "Whoa!" he said. "You've been having an exciting trip I see. I thought ghosts didn't sleep?"

Mitchell's face darkened and he looked around anxiously to see if anyone had heard his over-loud statement, but they were all clearly busy with their belongings and no one showed any signs of having noticed what he'd said.

"Keep your voice down!" he hissed. Arlie just held his hands up in amused protest. "They don't, normally." Mitchell said. "I guess it was just all the excitement of being out and about again. She's not been away from Bristol in about two years now."

"Don't be so modest," Arlie said. "Having the ability to send women to sleep by your mere presence is something to be proud of, Mitchell. It's a rare talent!"

Mitchell's expression spoke a thousand words, none of them polite.

"Anyway, you'd better wake her up now, we're coming into the station."

"Yeah thanks, I did know that," he said tersely. "Where have you been for the last three hours anyway? Hopefully you've been behaving yourself."

"Of course! Who do you think I am? Anyway, the availability of options for not behaving yourself on a train like this are incredibly limited." He leaned back on a chair, as a young woman pushed past on her way to the door. Arlie followed her with his eyes, looking hungry. Then he turned back to Mitchell. "You can't even smoke without someone whining about it to the guard. Plus, the food is shocking, I'm absolutely starving! And by the way, I hope you're not going to try to stop me from feeding while we're here. We'll have words if you do."

"I'm not your mother, Arlie," Mitchell said harshly. "You'll do what you want, I know that. Just don't bring trouble on our heads. I don't want that on this trip. I've enough to think about."

Arlie lurched slightly as the train came to a squealing halt. "Whatever," he said. "I'll see you outside once you've kissed sleeping beauty or whatever the hell you're going to do." He made his way out of the automatic door and disappeared.

Mitchell looked down at Annie. She was so beautiful, so peaceful sleeping like she was. And it was the first time that he'd ever known her to sleep. He'd suggested it to her many times, but never until now had she actually followed his advice.

Softly, he ran a hand down her cheek. "Hey," he said. "Annie."

She made a noise, a faint moan, and her eyes opened. Then she realized she was leaning on Mitchell's shoulder, and sat up quickly with something of a horrified expression on her face.

"God!" she exclaimed. "Sorry!"

"It's fine," he said cheerfully. "It's good that you're sleeping."

"Yeah," she said, looking slightly shocked. "Um, where are we?"

"We're there," he told her, and levered himself out of his seat so that he could retrieve his bag.

"Good," she said. "Yes. Good."

He looked down at her, still amused. "Arlie's outside. Come on, let's go find somewhere to spend the night. Then we can give George a call and make sure he's not drinking out of the toilet or anything."


	7. Chapter 7

"How is he?" Mark asked as Nina came up to him. He'd been hovering near the curtained treatment areas in A&E trying not to look suspicious, which was fairly easy considering that no one was ever going to look at a priest and think him suspicious.

"Oh, fine," she said grumpily, sighing and rubbing her neck. "Complaining a lot."

Mark smiled before his expression faded to concern. "And how about you? That last one hit you pretty hard."

She squeezed up her already bruising face and hefted the blue ice pack she was holding in her right hand. "I'll live," she said. "Might not have done, though, if you hadn't been there."

"I was just in the right place at the right time," he threw off.

Her eyes narrowed. "Why were you there? Some divine inspiration?"

"Mm," he nodded. "There was a star in the east."

"What?" she was too tired to even realize that he was being blatantly sarcastic.

Mark just smiled. "I followed him," he explained. "George I mean. I saw him take off at a run from outside the hospital door, and he looked sort of agitated – more so than usual – so I followed him. Nothing overtly godly."

She smiled back vaguely, her eyes a little unfocussed, and she slowly raised the ice pack back to her cheek. "Why does it work?" she asked.

Mark was confused. "How's that?"

"You, scaring off the…" she checked herself and glanced around, but no one was in ear shot. "The vampires," she finished. "I mean, no offence, but you're hardly a terrifying-looking man."

"Terrifying isn't a look I've mastered yet, I must admit." He indicated his outfit. "The clothes don't really lend themselves to striking fear. Not since the church stopped all that hellfire stuff, anyway. Big mistake. Much easier to get people to pray if you tell them they're going to be prodded by pitchforks for the rest of eternity if they don't. "

"But how does it work," Nina insisted. "Really, you saying those things, George with his Star of David. It's not like…" she broke off again, rubbing her head. "Sorry."

"What?"

"Well," she gestured with one hand. "It's just I never believed in God."

"You and most of the country these days," he said. "No one else bothers to apologise."

"It's just," she said again. "I never had need to believe in the supernatural. I thought there were enough things, terrifying, evil things in this plain of existence without adding things we couldn't see or prove to the list. Until I became one of course."

"You think you're evil?"

She snorted. "You don't?"

"I don't know. We haven't even been formally introduced yet."

She looked at him oddly, and then realized that he was right. "Nina," she said, holding out her hand.

"Mark," he said, holding out his. And they shook firmly. "And in answer to your question," he said. "No I don't think you're evil, if for no other reason than my presence has no affect on you whatsoever. It seems to be quite different for our friends out there in the alley. If you're looking for something evil, then I'd say you don't need to look much further."

She put the ice pack back on her cheek as she considered him. "Evil is as evil does," she murmured quietly.

He smiled indulgently. "In answer to your other question," he said. "I think it works because they are creatures removed from God, however you want to perceive Him. God's world doesn't allow for creatures like that to walk around, so when they are reminded of his presence, it hurts them in some way. They feel unnatural, because they are."

She snorted. "And I'm natural?"

"Whoever makes up these rules seems to think so," he said.

"Father, whereas I appreciate your version of things, it doesn't explain why a simple pendant can have such an effect on a bunch of violent, super strong killers!" she kept her voice down as much as possible, but her last word made them both glance around nervously. "And we're not even talking just about Christianity here. George's pendant is… I don't know what it is, I don't understand Judaism or know anything about it. But it works against those creatures. Somehow it holds them off, they actually fear it. It's like it hurts them."

"It's a symbol of faith," Mark said. "It's a representation of his belief in something that they have no part of."

"But you said it was to do with God, with your God."

"God doesn't belong to me," he said, amused. "Or George, or you. And whatever he is, I can't even begin to explain it to you. All I can say is that what we saw tonight with our own eyes is surely some sign that he exists, whatever that means."

"Suzanne," Nina called suddenly to a passing nurse. "How many was it in the end?"

"Seven," the nurse said, betraying a distinctly Welsh accent. She held out a metal kidney shaped bowl and rattled it slightly, showing off the two shards of bloody glass inside it. . "Four in one, three in the other. Do you know your boyfriend whines like a dog?" she said taking the bowl back and smiling broadly, but not kindly. "I mean actually like a dog. You should get him a collar and a lead, one of those little name tags that says George on it."

"Yes," Nina said tersely. "I'm sure he'd love that."

Suzanne grinned again and moved off round the corner. Nina opened her mouth to continue her conversation, but then Suzanne re-appeared again suddenly.

"Oh," she said. "And the police are here, ready to take your statement."

"Well they can just wait," Nina exclaimed. "I want to see George first."

"Alright love, have it your way. I'll hold them off for you – and that's not an entirely unpleasant prospect." She vanished round the corner again.

"I should," Nina sighed tiredly. "Go and see how he is."

"Do you think the," he lowered his voice right down and hissed: "_vampires,_" before returning to his normal tone. "Will come back?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't even know why they were there, why they attacked me."

"Where's your vampire friend? Maybe he can talk to them or something."

"No, he's in Edinburgh."

"What's he doing in Scotland?" Mark exclaimed.

"A bad accent, probably," she said, turning to go.

"I'll hang around," Mark said, as bravely as he could, arresting her departure. "Since my presence seems to offer some sort of protection – for whatever reason – then it seems the least I can do."

She smiled, genuinely, touched by his support in this impossible situation, and nodded slightly before heading off to George's cubical.

She pulled back the curtain, and he looked up sharply, and then winced. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, with his hands at each side.

"Jesus!" he said.

"No," she corrected. "Nina."

He half smiled at the bad joke, trying to feel happy with the sensation of simply not fighting with her.

She smiled back. "How are you doing?" He shrugged, so so. "Suzanne said seven stitches in the end." She went up to him and tilted his head to get a look at the doctor's handiwork.

He winced again, but didn't stop her. "Yeh, and I think she enjoyed every one of them."

"Mm," she said, satisfied with the neat little black knots knitting his cuts together, and moving round in front of him. "And she says you whine."

He looked genuinely hurt at that. "I don't!" Then he looked less sure. "Do I?

She considered. "Well, I have known you to make the occasional doggy related noise, though usually in much different circumstances."

"Nina," he complained, now definitely offended. "You know I only howled that once!"

"Oh, I know," she teased, leaning in and kissing him, then putting her forehead gently on his.

George sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "About – what happened earlier. With Julia."

"Don't even think about it," Nina reassured him. "You did a brave thing tonight. Thank you."

"I did an instinctive thing tonight," George corrected her. "Not a brave thing."

She drew back. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that once I knew you were in trouble, wild horses could not have kept me from coming after you. Something inside of me would have made me come into that alleyway if there'd been a thousand vampires in there with you."

"Why do you think – they came after me?" she wondered, awkward with the question, as if half fearful that she herself had done something wrong.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "They just don't like lycos, I guess. They never have."

"Yes but, you said Mitchell warned them off, didn't you?"

"Well, no he got that friend of his to warn them off. And we've only got his word that he actually did it. For all we know he could have been in there setting up a sweepstake before they set off north: who's going to take out the most lycos before I get back? Prize of one vestal virgin for the winner."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "A vestal virgin?"

"I dunno," he said tiredly, then asked. "Can we go home now?"

"Yup," she said, pulling away from him so that he could stand. "But, I'm going to have to wake you every two hours."

"Nina, I'm exhausted!" he moaned, dragging himself to his feet.

"And concussed," she pointed out. "So you can either stay here and Suzanne can rock your world through the night, or you can sleep in your own bed, and let me do it."

"So much for our romantic evening."

"Come on, it won't be so bad. I'll think of novel ways to wake you," she teased, with an evil glint in her eye.

"And who's going to wake you?" he wondered, running a finger lightly down her bruised cheek. "They hit you too."

"Yeh, I didn't pass out though," she said.

"What's this, like head wound point scoring?" he wondered testily, as she scooped his soiled jacket up from the cubicle's only chair, and handed it to him.

"Stop complaining. Anyway we have to go and talk to the police now," she said, then ran her hands over her hair. "Though god knows what we're going to say to them."

"The truth," he shrugged. "You got mugged on the way home. I heard it and came to help, and then Mark showed up and that freaked the attackers out…"

"In the way that the appearance of a priest will often do to the street-wise youth of today," she dropped in sarcastically.

"And they left," he finished pointedly.

"And how are we going to describe them?" she wondered.

"Six foot, fangs?" he suggested

"Do you know what, officer," she said, taking his arm. "It was really dark in that alleyway and I honestly couldn't see very much."

"Hm maybe that would be better," he said, smiling.

---

Annie looked out of the window at the lights on the street below. She was entranced. It had been so long since she'd seen any city but Bristol, that, like the countryside, she'd seen from the train, she'd almost forgotten that anything else existed. And this was a beautiful place; old, majestic, full of life. It made her dream of seeing other places, other horizons.

She remembered Gilbert waxing lyrical about the beauty of the world, but she'd never felt it, not since she'd died. Her world had been so small and black and confining. But the oddest thing of all, perhaps, was that she hadn't even noticed how tiny she'd let it become. Until now.

She turned away from the window and looked again at the magnificent room she was in. She'd never stayed in a room like it, not once in her life. It was part of a suite, with Mitchell staying in the bedroom next door and Arlie in a second suite to himself down the corridor. Mitchell had been right: the other vampire had money to spare and had been flash with it, taking them both out to dinner in a Chinese restaurant (though of course, Annie didn't actually eat anything, much to the amusement of the staff) before moving on to cocktails in a high class bar.

"Where does his money come from?" Annie had whispered sharply to Mitchell at one point when Arlie was out of earshot. "Is it legal?"

"I told you," Mitchell hissed back. "He was a stockbroker. He knows how to play the markets. And when you've been alive for most of the 20th century, interest can really be your friend. The man's probably got more money than God!"

They'd come back to the hotel, and phoned the house but without success, prompting Mitchell to make some lewd comments about what the two werewolves were probably getting up to in their absence. Annie prudishly ignored him, and Mitchell just smiled and said he'd see her in the morning, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and then disappearing into the suite's bedroom.

Annie had watched rubbish on the suite's massive wide-screen TV, trying to keep the sound at a minimum to avoid disturbing the vampire's sleep. But nothing distracted her from the bubbling excitement she'd been feeling since she'd left home.

It was incredible, being here, being out. And she never wanted that feeling to end.

But then, somewhere in the back of her head tugged the thought of what they'd come here to do: to kill a man. And the life went out of her. That's why she'd been staring out of the window, hoping that the buzz of the centre of Edinburgh would be infectious, even to an onlooker, hoping it would bring back her joy.

She heard a cough from the next room and glanced at the clock on the room's desk. It was just after 3am. Curious, she walked softly to the bedroom door and knocked lightly.

"Mitchell?"

"Yeah, Annie," came his muffled voice from the other side.

She turned the knob and pushed open then door, sticking her head round first before going in. Mitchell was sitting in a chair beside the bed, smoking and looking pensive. He clearly hadn't even been trying to sleep.

She smiled, coming in more fully. "Still up?" she said, unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I uh, couldn't sleep," he said, sticking his cigarette back in his mouth.

She moved towards the bed, a bit uncomfortable. "Thinking about tomorrow?"

He tilted his head to the side. "Partly," he said, blowing out smoke.

"What are you thinking?"

He shrugged. "If I'm doing the right thing, I guess."

"What do you mean?" she perched on the bed.

Mitchell looked away, glancing out of the window, which, like the one in Annie's room looked out over the street below. He didn't have his curtains drawn. The sound of people still out having fun, even at that time in the morning, filtered up to them, shouts and the odd scream.

"If I'm being too judgmental."

"But, the guy's evil, Mitchell. You said it yourself. He's done all sorts of dodgy experiments, he's cruel."

"Yeah, but," he leaned forward in the chair. "Annie, science isn't always clean. I've seen it, I've seen how it's changed over the years, and the way it is now, the way you see it on TV with all those people in labs and white coats with pipettes and big machines, that's not how it used to be. People have always been carrying out horrific experiments, sometimes on themselves, sometimes on other people. It's the way things move forward. And what if he has made this huge advancement in medical science? What if he can cure people of these terrible diseases? Isn't it worth it?"

"But at the expense of how many lives?" she protested, horrified. "You can't say that one person's life is worth less than another's just because they're a… a werewolf or a vampire. A person is a person, and their worth is the same."

He sat back again. "That's what I thought too," he said. "But is it true?" he shook his head. "I just don't know anymore."

"How many werewolves did you say he'd killed over the years?" she demanded.

"Oh, dozens probably. He told me it was about ten or something, but I have a feeling it was a lot more."

"And all those people are just like George and Nina," she insisted. "They're normal human beings most of the time, with feelings and emotions, and a right to exist."

"I know," he said. "I made that argument myself. But it's done now. He's done it. We can't un-do it. Maybe the least we can do is celebrate their deaths by allowing this great medical break-through to actually come into being. And maybe that means not killing him."

Annie considered her complicated friend, wondering what she should say next. Mitchell was always a man of strong opinions, and changing opinions too. It was as if his long existence had woken him to the fact that things never stayed the same for long, so having strong beliefs one way or another wasn't a particularly good way to live your life. Having the ability to modify your path, tweak your ideals and your morals to fit the situation, that was a skill. It was one she hadn't acquired yet, still hung up on who she was and what she believed when she was alive. But she presumed that would change as well as time went on, and as the world turned.

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked eventually.

He shrugged. "Go see the other vampires first, I think." He stubbed out his cigarette on an ash tray.

"Other vampires?"

"Mm," he said. "There's a big group here in Edinburgh, they're pretty well organised these days, and they generally know everything about everything. They'll probably know that we're here already, so, since we're not in a rush to see the good professor tomorrow, I think we should pay them a visit. Seems only polite."

"Alright," she said. "You'd better get some sleep then," she said, smiling and doing her best mother hen impersonation.

He smiled back. "You too."

"Oh," she got to her feet. "I think I've done my quota of sleep for the next - ten years or so, she said, fobbing it off. "I'll just go watch TV. See you in the morning."

"Yeah," he said, looking out the window again. "See you."


	8. Chapter 8

George spent the morning asleep in bed, or most of the morning anyway. Nina had woken him early one last time to say that she was going to work (a fact he remembered contesting quite vigorously) and would he be okay until she got back?

He'd moaned a bit about having a sore head and not wanting her to go in, and wasn't she hurt, and couldn't she stay with him? But eventually, she'd left him to it, and he'd fallen asleep again within about 5 minutes, effectively bringing any further argument to an end.

When he woke again a few hours later, the headache hadn't gone away, and all that came with wakefulness was a sense of unspecified worry and angst over some impending disaster that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Then he remembered who was coming to dinner.

He'd spent the next two hours cleaning the house from top to bottom, even corners of it that his ex-fiancée was never going to get to see unless she spent hours examining the place with an unnatural thoroughness. Somehow the monotony of scrubbing and hoovering and dusting negated the soup of emotions he was struggling with and even helped him to forget his pounding head.

When Nina got home a little before 5, she barely recognised the place. Everything was neatly tidied away, the main room was lit with candles, and her sensitive nose picked up the distinct scent of lavender coming from somewhere.

"Well," she said, going into the kitchen and seeing him standing over the stove with a spatula in one hand. "You have been busy."

He turned and smiled. His emotions had peaked about an hour before she'd gotten home, and, now over the worst of his stress, they'd plateaued into something of a simmering calm.

"Evening," he said back.

"How's your head?" she wondered, coming over to him and wrapping an arm around his waste. He matched her action and kissed her forehead. "Still sore," he admitted. "But I've been doing domestic chores to distract myself. How about you?"

"I'm fine," Nina said tiredly. "It was just a long day."

"Well, not long until we can eat," he said.

"Mm," she said, feeling her stomach rumble in anticipation. "What are you making?"

"Sticky beef with stir-fried vegetables and noodles," he said. "We still had those steaks, so… Oh and there's a sort of rice pudding in the oven."

"Sounds good," she said, giving him a final squeeze and peeling away. She took her bag off and slumped into one of the kitchen chairs. "Any word from Julia?"

"Not a peep. Maybe she won't come and we can just spend the evening together."

Nina harrumphed at that. She didn't think they had that kind of luck. Oh to go back 24 hours and smack herself in the mouth so that she wouldn't suggest anything quite so stupid as to have her boyfriend's ex-fiancée come to tea on the evening that the two of them were going to turn into ravening beasts. She dropped her head forward onto her arms feeling sick. This was going to be a disaster.

"You sure you're alright?" George said, looking concerned. "We can still call it off, you know. I've got her number."

"No, no," she said, picking her head up again. "It'll be fine. Really George."

He smiled sadly, the sight of her bruised face tugging at his heart. He left the stove and came over, crouching down so that he could look up at her. "I really have buggered your life good and proper, haven't I."

"What?" she said. "Oh, George." She put her hands on his shoulders. "It's fine. It's not your fault that vampires are wankers or that my job sucks. If you have to feel guilty, at least limit yourself to the things you have a vague amount of responsibility for. Let's just get through it, alright? At least we have each other."

He nodded. "And that's never going to change," he insisted. "I'll always be here for you, Nina. Whatever happens." He gave her a quick kiss and headed back to the cooker.

"_Don't promise that_," Nina said in her head. "_Don't ever promise that_."

"I'm going to have a quick shower," she said out loud, dragging herself to her feet. "I'll be back down in a bit."

---

"John Mitchell, isn't it?" The man greeted Mitchell with a smile on his face and a firm handshake of welcome. He looked to be in his mid to late forties, short hair, rough faced as though he'd been walking the windy wet streets of Scotland's capital for longer than his years would imply. Which of course he had.

"David," Mitchell said back cheerfully, taking his hand, and gripping it with equal force. "Long time."

"Indeed," David said, looking past him to his companions. "And who have you brought with you to this quiet little corner of the world?"

"This is my friend, Annie," he said, presenting her.

"A ghost!" he said, pleasurably surprised. "Don't see many as solid as you," He held out his hand to her. "What did you do to deserve such as vivid afterlife?"

"Oh, this and that," Annie took his hand and felt him curiously squeeze it. She pulled it back, unsure and not particularly enjoying his scrutiny.

"And this is Arlie," Mitchell went on.

"Welcome," David said, holding out a hand to the other vampire and shaking it as well. Then he gestured them to come and sit down.

They were in an old, Georgian-style house with high ceilings and fancy cornicing. It was nice, opulent you might even say, and obviously this particular group of vampires didn't hold very much with the idea of hiding in shadows or congregating in chilly funeral parlours.

The room had about six or seven other vampires in it, some smoking, sitting relaxed on the floor or in chairs and chatting away, clearly unconcerned by the visitors. Annie perched on the over-sized couch feeling uncomfortable, but Mitchell and Arlie slumped down, at ease with the surroundings.

"You'll have a drink," David said, turning to one of the other people in the room, who smiled and got to her feet, fetching a bottle of whisky and some glasses from a cabinet at the back of the room.

David poured them all glasses, including Annie, and held his up. "To visitors from the past," he said. The others matched his toast, though Annie left her drink where it sat.

"So," he said, savouring the flavour of the whisky, and looking at his guests over the top of his glass. "We had an unexplained death reported last night, a young lady in an alley at the West End. I presume that was one of you?"

Mitchell shot Arlie a disapproving look. Arlie, for his part, looked entirely unconcerned, sitting back with one foot up on the other knee. "I made it as neat as I could," he said. "You could barely see the teeth marks."

Annie felt disgusted, but tried not to show it given the company she was in.

David just smiled, clearly he was used to being in charge. "Well," he said. "Let's not have any more of that. We have a way of doing things here. There's too many of us to just go on uncontrolled binges whenever we feel like it. You want to feed, you come and talk to us and we'll set you up. No more young girls in alleyways."

Arlie shrugged, unworried.

"How about you?" David turned to Mitchell.

"Oh I've stopped," Mitchell said.

All conversation in the room went silent. David glanced around at the others, who were all now staring at Mitchell. "Stopped," he said, looking at him as well. "Altogether?"

"Mm hm," Mitchell said, feeling uncomfortable, but not about to hide who he was. He took a drink, feeling the liquid run hot down his throat.

David smiled. "I've heard of a few who tried," he said. "But none who made it."

"It's not easy," Mitchell admitted.

"Hm," David took another drink, and changed the subject abruptly. "So, what are you doing in town? Come to see the sights?"

"No – uh – we're looking for someone, a man, a scientist."

"Really."

"Yeah, he's at some conference, some medical thing."

David shrugged. "I don't know anything about it. What's this man got to do with you?"

"He took me and a friend captive a few months ago," Mitchell said. "To experiment on."

"Really," David looked more interested. "So he's knows of the existence of vampires?"

"And other supernaturals," Mitchell said. "He's been doing experiments on people like us for years."

"What for?"

"To find cures for human diseases he said, though I think a lot of it was revenge as well. His daughter was killed by a werewolf many years ago, and it seems he never got over it."

"Mm," David said. "Those undisciplined bastards will be the death of us all one day. So this guy took you and your friend in, did experiments and then just let you go?"

"No, we were rescued," Mitchell explained. "Arlie and others came and killed them all, all the scientists who were involved in the experiments. Or we thought it was all of them anyway. Turned out we were wrong and this guy got away. I saw him on TV the other day, and I wanted to come and finish the job. But I didn't want to step on anyone's toes, so I thought I'd you all know what I was up to."

"That's good of you," David said, nodding. "And sounds like a worthy quest. Do you need any help?"

"Hopefully not," Mitchell said. "Though it might help to have a few people in the area, just in case. This guy knows vampires, he knows how to get to us."

"Bastard took my fucking eye," Arlie cut in, sourly.

David looked at him and smiled. "So it's personal for both of you, then," he said.

"Oh, we'll get him alright," Arlie said. "Whatever Mitchell says, I'm going to be ready for him this time."

"Hm" David said, finishing his whisky and putting the glass down on the table. "And the ghost? What's she here for?"

Annie looked up and the mention. "Oh, um, moral support," she joked, smiling.

No one smiled back, so she went back to her uncomfortable silence.

"And this friend of yours you say was captured too," David went on. "He's not here to help you?"

"No, he's uh…" Mitchell started.

"Too busy howling at the moon," Arlie smirked.

David looked at Mitchell sharply. "You're friends with a werewolf?" he said. Mitchell nodded mutely, but David just burst out laughing. "Christ," he said. "What's going on down in Bristol these days? Not feeding, living with a ghost and friends with a werewolf. Well, it's nothing to do with me how you chose to live your life," he got to his feet, and the others scrambled up to, sensing it was time to leave. "When are you going to do your thing?"

"About 6," Mitchell said, relieved to be going. "Up at the conference centre."

"Then I'll send you 5 people who I can trust to help you," David said. "They won't interfere unless you ask them to, and you won't even see them," he held out his hand to Mitchell again to shake it. "I promise."


	9. Chapter 9

Julia was clearly trying hard not to look uncomfortable as she picked at her sticky beef and noodles, but given the situation, it was hardly surprising that she was being less than successful.

They'd all of them been moving rather like automatons since she'd arrived prompt at 5.29. George had brought out some wine, and they'd sat and chatted about this and that, starting with the attack the previous evening (she'd been shocked by the black eye) and then moving onto how Julia's job had been going, how they found working at the hospital, what Bristol was like. Then they'd adjourned to the table in the kitchen for the main meal, which was, as George's cooking always was, tasty and well prepared. Not that any of them were enjoying it particularly.

Nina tried to keep some sort of conversation going as they drank their way through one bottle of red wine and moved on to a second, but they were limited in what they could talk about without getting into painful areas, and even simple talking points had a habit of going wrong.

"So," Julia had said. "Where are your friends tonight? Didn't you used to live with a couple of people? A ghost and a – " she'd smiled, "vampire wasn't it?"

"Yeah, they're not here," George retorted. "They've gone to Scotland."

Scotland being the site of George's attack and the beginning of the end of their relationship, the mention of it made the air of tension in the room go up a few notches, and the pair glanced at each other uncomfortably, and then down at their food.

Nina had taken in a breath and looked at the clock on the wall, seeing that it was only half six. They'd been at it for an hour. It felt like days.

"It is odd being around vampires and ghosts, though," she said, seeing an opportunity to take the conversation in another direction. "I've been doing it for several months now, you never get round to thinking of it as normal."

"Really?" Julia said, trying to disguise the slight hitch in her voice. "I would have thought it would have been like when someone tells you they're a cross dresser in their spare time. You just kind of get used to it after a while and don't notice it any more."

"Did you just compare being a vampire to being a cross-dresser?" George asked, quietly.

"Mm, I know what you mean," Nina said, bowling over him. "But it just never seems to sink in. You think it does, but then there'll be some conversation come up about what the trams were like in London after the war, or whatever, and it all comes back to you, how odd it is."

"Oh, so, he's been around a while then, your friend?"

"I think so," Nina took a drink of wine, wondering briefly if getting drunk was a particularly good idea just before a transformation. "George, do you know how old Mitchell is?"

George was looking at his glass fixedly. "About a hundred I think."

"Gosh," Julia said. "That's, uh, that's amazing. He must have seen so much."

And the conversation dropped again and they sat there in uncomfortable silence.

Then suddenly, Nina's sharp ears heard her mobile phone ringing upstairs in the bedroom. "Oh," she said. "That's my phone. I'll be right back." And she dashed for the stairs.

Julia smiled after her, having not heard the phone ring, and presuming that Nina, therefore, was leaving them together with a convenient excuse so that she could talk to George. She toyed with the stem of her wine glass, the dark liquid looking almost like blood under the low lights. George watched her closely as she picked the glass up and drank the last of her wine in one go, a dribble making its way unnoticed down the outside of the glass to eventually leave a small stain on the tablecloth.

She met his eyes. "Your parents still say Yizkor," she said, matter-of factly.

"Don't," he said quietly, but with enough menace to make it sound more like a warning than a request

Julia ignored him. "Both of them go together."

"Julia, I said don't!" he got to his feet and walked away from the table and into the living room.

"Your mother cries!" she exclaimed, getting up and following him. "She's still in mourning for you, George!"

"And that's what you came here to tell me?" he said angrily, turning back to face her. "You came here to guilt me?"

"You walked away from us," she accused.

"Yes I did," he admitted. "I did it, and it was – awful and I know it was awful for you and awful for them, but I did it, and I can't go back."

"But what sort of a life have you got here?" she wondered, gesturing to the shabby room. "You're so much better than this. And still working as a porter? Is that what you studied for all those years? Is that what you worked so hard for? Is this going to be the pinnacle of your achievement, that you wheeled someone from one hospital ward to another?"

His face was stony. "You don't know what you're saying," he said. "I don't have a choice."

"But you do!" she insisted. "You make your choices. You've chosen to be with…" she lowered her voice. "With her."

"I needed someone in my life," he insisted urgent and quiet. "And you weren't there. And Nina was there. And she was kind and she was loving, and she didn't judge me. She didn't care what I was or what I did. And… she's my world now, my everything. I love her."

Julia looked away, but George's wolf-sharp eyes caught the miniscule tremble of her lip, and the sheen of wetness that gathered over her eyes. Her very smell seemed to change with her distress, and he had to fight the urge to just gather her up into his arms and rock her comfortingly – or fling her over the table and do her. He wasn't quite sure which.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm sorry for coming here. I'm sorry that - that I wasn't – ready before, when I last saw you. I should have been the one that was here for you. I should have been able to cope."

He laughed out loud at that. "This isn't something you just cope with, Julia. It's not like starting a new job. This is a lifetime of pain and misery."

"You make it sound so appealing."

"It's nothing, but what it is. You couldn't cope – I couldn't cope – but I had to because I didn't have a choice. You did, and you chose to leave."

"Did she choose?" Julia said quietly, not looking at him.

"Chose what?"

"Nina, when you started dating. Did you give her that choice? Did you tell her?"

He regarded her sullenly. "No, I didn't tell her straight away. It's not something you just mention at dinner: Oh yes, I love cooking risotto, you look beautiful tonight, and by the way, I'm a fucking werewolf!" As he said the last part of this sentence, he hurled the napkin that he was still holding in the direction of the couch, his anger bubbling up again.

Julia flinched at the action, unsure of him. But there was more she wanted to know. She swallowed. "How did you – scratch her?"

George chuffed out a breath and put his hands on his hips. "I scratched her," he said. "Does it matter how?"

"I guess not," she conceded. "I guess it kind of – binds the two of you together."

He took a step towards her, furious suddenly. "You think that's the only reason we're still a couple?" he demanded. "You think I can only keep someone if I turn them into a monster! Like me?"

"No, I didn't mean that," she protested.

"Then what the hell did you mean?"

"I mean!" she started back, almost as angry as him suddenly. "I meant that if you're together, really together, then…"

"Then what?"

"Then – you'll never come back to me."

George softened in an instant. "What?"

"I still love you, George," she confessed, her eyes full of anguish. "I never stopped loving you. I tried, but, when I found out you were alive, when I knew where you were, I couldn't just… forget you, I couldn't get over losing you again."

"But you left me," he pointed out.

"You let me think you were dead!" she countered with emotion.

"Because I had to!" he yelled. "I did it to protect you, to protect – everyone. But I had to, because I couldn't bear the thought of…" he stopped and shut his eyes. Then he went on. "What happened with Nina," he said, opening his eyes again, and shaking his head. "Christ, Julia, it was awful. To do that to another human being. It's like destroying somebody. And to do it to someone that you love, not a stranger, but someone you love and who trusts you, it's… I can't even describe it. I couldn't be around you, my family," his voice quivered slightly. "Bring this beast into that. It doesn't deserve to be part of that life, it doesn't fit."

She laughed without humour. "It's a werewolf you're talking about George. It doesn't fit anywhere except in fairy stories."

"Horror stories, "he corrected her. "And it is – horrific. What that thing can do. What I can do. What I want to do right now, because don't think I'm separate from it. Right now I am so close to it, the moon is so close. I can feel it stirring inside, like a bomb ticking, and I know that in two hours I'm going to have inch long claws and if I got the chance, I would rip you apart from neck to groin and eat your heart." Julia grimaced at his description. "That's what this thing is," George insisted. "It's not a joke."

"But maybe we can find a way around it," Julia suggested. "Maybe there's a cure."

He fixed her with an angry stare, taking a step closer. "You just don't get it, do you?" he growled. "I am what I am now. And whatever you say, you don't accept it. You don't accept me. You just want me back the way I was, the George with prospects and a bright future. But I'm not that George any more. I can't be that person ever again."

She came right up to him then, and put a hand on his face. "You will always be that George to me," she said, and kissed him.

To say he tried to stop her would be a lie, and lip-to-lip, they danced the dance of passion that lovers of all ages and cultures have stepped for millennia. But to say that he was an equal partner in the kiss would also be a lie. Part of him wanted her, that was certain, but it was the base part only, the part he had little control over when the pale moon was rising. Every other part screamed that this was wrong, that this woman had left him, that he was with someone else now, someone who loved him for what he was and would be with him forever.

He pulled back, the action taking most of his mental strength.

"No." He caught both her hands in his. "We can't."

Julia looked down, heartbroken. "I'm sorry," she said. Then she pulled away from him. "I – I should go."

There was a noise on the stairs and they both turned to see Nina standing there, phone in hand. She looked between them, clearly sensing trouble.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Nothing," George said awkwardly.

"I was – uh – I was just going," Julia said, crossing to the couch and picking up her jacket and her bag that she'd left there.

"Really?" Nina said, suspiciously. "I thought there was pudding, George. You're not going to stay?"

"No – um – you two have got a lot on tonight, and I've already taken up enough of your time. It's been, so kind of you," she said as she struggled into her coat. "And really nice to get to know you a bit better."

"Sure," Nina said, looking between her and George.

"So I'll – um – I'll maybe be in touch," Julia said to George. "Next time I'm in town or something."

He nodded without saying anything, without going near her.

"It was nice to meet you," Julia said again to Nina, and then opened the door quickly, and made her escape out into the night.

"What was that about?" Nina asked, watching George like a hawk.

"Nothing," he said, going through to the kitchen and starting to clear away their plates.

"Didn't look like nothing," Nina said, following him and watching him move to the sink with the dishes, dumping them in the basin.

"Well it was," he said, putting his hands up on the cold metal surrounding the sink and leaning on it, trying to gather his seething emotions into something of a stable state of being.

Nina tried a different tack. "She left pretty quick," she said. "Did you two have a fight?"

"Oh, just leave it, Nina," he said his anger surging to the surface. He turned back and came over to the table for more dishes. "Do you want some of this pudding or what?"

Nina regarded him coldly. "Yeah, sure," she said, not moving.

George dumped the plates in the sink with a satisfying splash, and went straight to the oven for his rice pudding, fishing it out with the aid of a dishtowel and plonking it on the table.

Nina kept her eyes fixed on him. "Did something happen between the two of you?" she asked suddenly. "Is that what this is about?"

"What?" he protested lamely.

"Don't think I didn't notice the way she was looking at you."

"So?" George exclaimed. "Is it so incredible to believe that another woman in this world could actually find me attractive?"

"Oh, I don't find that hard to believe," she cried. "There was something about the two of you getting married I seem to remember, though I don't actually know that much about it, because amazingly, you haven't told me!"

The two of them glared at each other across the dinner table.

Then George sat down purposefully and started dishing out rice pudding, avoiding her gaze.

Nina watched him for a few seconds more before turning and walking away.


	10. Chapter 10

They'd decided, in the end, that Mitchell was just going to be too recognisable: that if they wanted to do this with an element of surprise, then he was going to have to keep a low profile, and definitely keep out of sight until they got to the dénouement of the arrangement.

So, he sent Arlie out to scout around the conference centre, see what was happening and who was about, while Mitchell and Annie, vampire and ghost, hid out in a nearby lane and tried not to look too suspicious.

Mitchell smoked, hoping partially that it would look like they were staff taking a break from one of the pubs or nearby hotels. He even persuaded Annie to hold a cigarette in an attempt to maintain the charade, and she did it for a while, moaning about the smell and flicking ash away from herself with an unskilled wrist.

Mitchell was amused by her antics. With something of a start, he actually realized that he'd been becoming more and more amused by her in recent weeks. Not amused in a superior sort of way, but in a genuine, friendship sort of way. She made him laugh, the way she was so fresh, so new to the world somehow, like the spring after a long winter.

He watched her try to hold the cigarette between her fingers in an effort to look cool, and ending up just dropping it on the cobbled alley floor, and it made him laugh. He almost forgot, in fact, the reason they were here until suddenly Arlie returned to break up their little party. And he was not alone.

With him was a dark-haired girl, mid-to late 20s probably, smartly dressed, hair tied back in a messy pony tail that could have done with a bit of a spritz with something to keep it back, Annie thought. Arlie was pretty much dragging her along with him, so she clearly wasn't a willing visitor. Mitchell's smile faded fast, and he turned to meet them.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. "I thought I told you to play it cool!"

"And I was," Arlie protested, throwing the girl forward against some railings. "I found this one following me. Thought we could maybe ask her why, and thought it would be more compelling if we all asked her."

The girl turned back, her face defiant, and in that moment, Mitchell and her recognised each other. Her eyes went wide with shock. He took a step forward.

"You!"

"What? You know her?" Arlie sounded surprised and slightly disgusted.

Mitchell glanced at him. "She works for him," he said. "For Jadat."

The girl didn't say anything, her eyes flicking between the two vampires warily.

"She was in there with him that night when they were doing all those tests on me," he went on, turning back to the girl. "You were the one who stuck that bloody needle in my arm."

"It was my job," she said finally breaking her silence.

"Your job!" he exclaimed. "Torturing people!"

"You're not people, that's was he tells us," she insisted. "I was just doing what I was told."

Mitchell was incredulous. "Why the hell did you bring her here anyway?" he demanded of Arlie.

"She was following me," he stated.

"You were acting suspiciously," the girl explained herself. "I thought you might be one of those – animal activists or something. I didn't think you might be…" she stopped, clearly unsure of herself.

"What?" he said. "A vampire?"

She swallowed, fear clearly clouding her emotions.

Arlie just laughed at her. "Let's just kill this bitch and get on with it," he said callously.

"You can't kill her!" Annie protested suddenly.

"Well we can't let her go back out there, love," he said. "What exactly would you recommend that we do? Hold her captive in an alleyway?"

"No," Mitchell agreed. "We can't do that." Arlie smiled and took a step towards the girl, who cowered back. Mitchell quickly put a restraining arm on him. "But you're not going to kill her either. I've got a better idea." He turned to the girl. "You work for him. You know everything that he's been doing?"

She looked around, wide-eyed, and nodded mutely.

"Then I think, it might be a good idea," he said, going up to her. "If you and me had a little chat."

---

When George and Nina left the house, they did so in near-silence, both gripping their bags firmly as though the sensation could anchor them and help them keep hold of their tempers. They walked to the hospital a little way apart, keenly aware of each other, but distant, like a pair of boats on a river with a strong current keeping them apart.

All couples argued, it was part of being together, of spending your life with someone and sharing parts of yourself that, in times of stress, could be hurled back at you like a weapon. Couples tore at each other, they bled each other, because that's what people do. But all that is metaphorical, and all wounds emotional, meaning that, come morning, they can be healed by a soft word of apology, or a kind act, or the ability to move on and forget.

But when a couple really could tear each other, when they could inflict wounds that had the potential to be scarring, or life-threatening, or fatal, that was something no apology could fix.

As their time approached, all that was left to George and Nina was the barest shreds of humanity to stop them from physically attacking each other. They stalked through the streets without talking, nerves stretched, containing their anger. Their strength proved adequate to the challenge, and they made it to the isolation room, with its little barred antechamber, still intact and unbloodied by each other's hands.

Undressing was awkward for the first time, and Nina chose not to bother, revelling in the idea of ripping through her clothes, suddenly. Like being re-born.

She gripped the bars that separated them, feeling the cold, rough metal bite into her hands as she squeezed them tight, almost testing their strength. She watched George as he unbuttoned his shirt, following every movement closely from heavily lidded eyes. He ignored her purposefully.

She decided to push it.

"Did you kiss her when you were alone?"

He didn't react.

"Did you say you'd go back to her; her and that precious family that mean so much to you, you let them think that you'd actually died?"

His head whipped round, his teeth slightly bared. Then he seemed to stop himself, and blew out a breath. He looked back at the wall.

"Did it feel good?" Nina licked her lips. "Kissing someone else? Kissing someone who wasn't a monster?"

"Leave it, Nina," he said quietly. "Julia's gone and she's not coming back."

"You didn't answer my question," she pointed out.

"No, you're right. I didn't!"

She smiled. "Which is as good as saying that you did kiss her."

"And what if I did?" he barked back. "What if I said I kissed her and I liked it? Is that what you want to hear?"

Her smile faded. "Be careful," she hissed.

"Or what?" he demanded, coming over to the bars, but keeping a small distance away from them and her. "What are you going to do? You going to make me pay for having feelings? You going to make her pay; track her down, hunt her like an animal?"

"What if I did?" she provoked him. "What would she tell me, George? What would she tell me about all those secrets you keep from me; about that other life you had, and all those people in it that you've never trusted me enough to share?"

"Why can't you understand?" he exclaimed passionately. "Why can't you understand that I need to not think about them, because remembering who I was and what I had is so painful that even allowing the memory of their faces to enter my head is like being stabbed?"

"Because I don't want to be like them, George!" she admitted, her chest tight with emotion, her voice rising in a fevered pitch. Her grip on the bars became painful. "Because I don't want you to leave me one day and never think of me again, like I'm some - casual thought that you can just erase from your mind and toss aside because it's too difficult to deal with! Memories are painful and they are raw, but they're part of who you are, and forgetting people cheapens them, and it cheapens you. And it sickens me to think that you can do it so easily."

"You think this was easy?" his eyes were wide as he surged forward to the bars, grabbing hold of them just below her hands and giving them a shake. "You think that what I did – that coming here and everything, every shitty little incident and living in hostels and on the street, and washing fucking dishes and being shat on by people and vampires and anyone who felt it their god-given right, you think that was easy?"

"Stop it," she all but whispered. "It's pathetic. Like none of this is your responsibility. Like none of this was your fault."

He gave the bars a harder shake, his eyes wide with anger. "You're the only thing here that's my responsibility, Nina. You're the only thing that's my fault."

What he would have said next would probably have kept the fight going, would probably have cut her and wounded her and angered her and blown on the embers. But he never had a chance.

The moon was a fickle thing, affecting everyone slightly differently, even when it came to magic. But every long month before when the change had happened, they had both been struck simultaneously, their bodies in perfect sync. Not this month.

Maybe it was the anger that affected it, the hormones being stirred to fever pitch by the fight. Still, when he suddenly screamed and clutched so hard on the bars that she thought bone might actually break through the skin of his knuckles, it caught Nina completely by surprise, almost as though she had forgotten what they had come to the basement to do. She got such a shock, in fact, that she didn't even notice for a few seconds that her own transformation was yet to start. Then she held up her hands and searched mentally inside herself for the first signs of pain.

When nothing transpired, she took a step forward to hold onto the bars once more and watch as her boyfriend screamed and twisted on the floor as he lost himself for another month. It took just 20 seconds for her own transformation to begin, and after that had taken hold, it pretty much drove every other sentient thought from her head. But as she disappeared inside the wolf for another month, the one thought that travelled with her was that she had enjoyed seeing him in pain.

And then the human her spun out into darkness.


	11. Chapter 11

Professor Jadat opened his eyes, sensing somehow that something wasn't right. The room around him leaked with the inky shadows of night, crouching terrors that sent children under their sheets with fear in their eyes. But not Jadat. He'd known fear, and it wasn't this, it wasn't the dark.

Still, he'd woken up for a reason, and the scientific part of his brain sounded a warning bell that sent him scrabbling for the switch of the bedside lamp. The light snubbed out the shadows in an instant, and like a magician revealing his trick, illuminated the figure of John Mitchell sitting in one of the room's comfortable chairs, hands clasped together across his chest as though in contemplation. He didn't even look up as the light hit him.

Jadat scrabbled up in his bed in shock. "Jesus!" he gasped out, breathing hard.

"You know what I don't get," Mitchell said in an easy-going tone. "Is why that poor bastard, who's only crime was telling everyone to get along and be nice to each other, and who was punished pretty severely for it you have to admit, still has to have his sodding name taken in vain. You'd think you people would show a little bit more respect."

"What do you want?" Jadat demanded, trying to fill his voice with a conviction that didn't fill his heart.

Mitchell looked up at him finally. "Aren't you – surprised to see me?" he asked.

"Well, yes, I did think you were dead," Jadat admitted, looking him up and down. "Though you have a look that it remarkably approximating life."

"Funny that isn't it," Mitchell said, his tone still jovial. "Funny how sometimes you think you're rid of a problem and then whoops, there it is again. It's like athlete's foot."

"You're comparing yourself to a fungal infection?"

Mitchell put his head to one side, contemplating. "I think you're the only infection around here," he said. "And you need treating."

"So what are you going to do? Kill me?" Jadat demanded. "Go for it. There's no one to stop you. How did you find me anyway?"

Mitchell sucked in a breath. "Oh, it took a lot of detective powers," he said. "That and News24. You know, if you're trying to keep a low profile, I'd really recommend staying away from doing interviews on national news channels."

"You watch News24?"

Mitchell sat back in the chair with a relaxed sigh. "Well, it's George's thing really. But it's good to keep up on what's happening in the world, and it helps you track down mass murderers from time to time. You pretty much put me through hell, you know that?" he went on, changing the subject. "Me and my friend. What I had to do to survive, what you made me do to him, was horrific. It's hard to forgive."

Jadat's eyes narrowed. "You killed him?" he said, sounding surprised. "You killed the werewolf?"

"You wish," Mitchell said with a short machine gun-like laugh. "Wouldn't it make your life so much easier if all those monsters you kept going on about just did the decent thing and killed each other? Wouldn't it though? But no, I didn't kill George. Did have to bite him though and man, let me tell you, werewolf blood – I wouldn't recommend it as a quick pick-me-up. But he's fine now, all recovered and running around. In fact, right about now he'll be doing his best Lassie impersonation I shouldn't wonder."

Jadat gulped silently and glanced around, thinking maybe that George was going to burst through the door and rip his throat out.

"Oh, he's not here!" Mitchell leaned forward, amused. "As if I'd bring him here to kill you, like I wasn't quite capable of doing that myself. No no, you don't need to worry about George, Professor Jadat," Mitchell smiled. "Not that he would ever want to kill you anyway. Very compassionate is our George, very worried about the wolf running around and hurting people. He's a sweet man. Shame you couldn't be bothered to get to know him more, y'know, before you drugged him and locked him up to die."

"It's too much of a risk to let a werewolf…"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mitchell waved his hand to cut him off, then got to his feet. "But anyway, enough about George. Let's talk about us." He made his way closer to the bed.

Jadat ran his tongue over his dry lips, his breathing loud in his own ears.

"So," Mitchell said, sitting down casually on the bed in front of him. "My dilemma is," he went on. "That I've turned away from the dark side. Y'know, like Darth Vader, all going gooey right at the end of the film. That's me. I don't kill people any more, professor. That's another thing that you might have picked up if you'd tried to get to know us, rather than turning us into a lab experiment. I don't kill."

"How noble," the professor said with as much bravado as he could muster. This close, he could smell the slight hint of death that clung to Mitchell, and the smell of his tobacco.

"Well, it's a lifestyle choice," Mitchell said. "Bit like going veggie I suppose, though god knows what that's all about. So, anyway, I was trying to find an excuse not to kill you."

"Not to kill me?" Jadat was surprised.

"Yeah, well, I didn't want to damage my score card did I? I mean, it's not like I count off the days or anything, but not killing's pretty tough, and I've got a lot of time under my belt now. So I figured that if you really had found some incredible cure that was going to change the world and prevent people from dying from all those horrible diseases that they get, or even some of them, or even one of them, you know, then that might be it. That might let you off the hook, and not excuse what you did, but give me reason enough not to tear your throat out.

"So I tried to find out a bit about it, but you've been very secretive, none of your reports are published yet, there's nothing on the Internet. But then I met Jane, and do you know what, she was incredible! Told me everything I could ever want to know. Turns out, she's not too happy at what you've been doing. Because you know what, you're a big, fat liar."

"What are you talking about?" the professor demanded. "Liar about what?"

"About everything!" Mitchell said, drawing back a bit. "Oh the work's being done, and all that rubbish about werewolf bone marrow and blah blah blah, some of it's sort of vaguely true. But your marvellous cure? It's just my blood. It's just vampire blood. You're not curing people, you're turning them into vampires."

"A minor side-effect that we intend to iron out during the medical trial-period."

"A side effect?" Mitchell said, all humour finally draining from his face. "You've not given them blotchy skin and dry eyes. You're turning them into homicidal monsters! And they were children!"

"But they were completely cured," Jadat insisted.

"Of course they were bloody cured!" Mitchell raged. "Because you killed them! The undead don't have diseases. We don't get cancer or colds or sore backs, you bastard. We're not human!" He lunged at the professor, pinning him to the bed by his shoulders. "I should have killed you in your sleep," he said, looking him in the eyes. He could feel him trembling.

"Then do it," Jadat said. "If I'm such a monster, you'll be doing the world a favour."

Mitchell's grip tightened painfully. "Probably," he growled. "And you'd deserve every ounce of pain and blood."

He shook him again. Then he backed off, looking away in disgust. Shakily, he got up from the bed and walked away.

Jadat opened his eyes wide, sucking in gasps of air, grateful to still have an intact windpipe for breathing.

"I don't kill," Mitchell stated again, looking over his shoulder at the figure in the bed, then he walked towards the door, and jerked it open without a backwards glance.

The professor shut his eyes, almost weeping in relief. Then they shot open again at Mitchell's voice.

The vampire was standing back in the room with a second, smartly dressed man at his side. The man had an eye patch, and a mischievous, boyish grin.

"This is Arlie," Mitchell was saying. "Your friends had the misfortune to shoot his eye out when they were kidnapping George, and he's come along to thank you personally." Arlie took a step forward, but Mitchell put a restraining hand on his shoulder for a second. "Oh," he said. "And by the way, Arlie has no compunction about killing whatsoever."

Then he turned and walked away, the closing hotel door behind him going some way towards dampening out the high-pitched screams that chased down the corridor after him.


	12. Chapter 12

He kept on walking, down the corridor with its plush red carpet and dimly lit bracket lights; down the stairs, hand skimming lightly over the polished banister, past the dozing porter at reception without a glance, and out the revolving doors into the cold, still Edinburgh night.

He breathed deeply, smelling water nearby, and hearing the faint tinkle of leaves up above blowing in the barely perceptible breeze, rimmed with the colour of autumn and death. He breathed again, and started walking, his mind spinning.

He'd killed before. Hundreds of times, as many as he'd needed and as often as he'd wanted. He didn't even feel that hypocritical, coming all this way and then letting someone else finish the job while he walked away with clean hands and unstained lips. And after all, Arlie wouldn't feel the least bit guilty about any of it. It was an evening snack for him, the equivalent of a glass of milk and a cookie, but with a bit more pep.

And it had been the right thing to do. The man was evil, there was no doubt now, and for all George always insisted that they had to be better than other people, Mitchell was a man of the world and knew well enough that the real monsters never went away unless you made them.

What was troubling him wasn't all that, wasn't the thought of Arlie sitting up there in the room smiling as he arranged the body into whatever position took his fancy tonight and picking skin from his teeth. It was the thought of Annie, and what she was going to think of him when he made it back to the room. Which, at the rate he was walking, wasn't going to be long.

Annie was different from George.

On the numerous times he'd fallen off the wagon when first giving going dry a try, he'd come back to the flat and feel glad that he couldn't stare at himself mournfully in a mirror. He'd scrub away the blood, have a shower, and go to bed thinking, ah well, maybe next time…

When George had come into his life, Mitchell had started to feel guilty about it, usually trying to hide it from the werewolf, and often getting away with it. He was after all, proficient at hiding things by that stage in his life, and George was new to the darker side of the world and didn't get things like the significance of the washing machine being on so early in the morning, and Mitchell's colour being different. Then he saw Mitchell one morning, traipsing in after a night of shame, blood congealed in his stubble and crusted on his hair. He'd been horrified, and had said words like 'murder' and 'killing' in a high-pitched, over-anxious tone that Mitchell would get to know so well. But he just countered with words like 'vampire' and 'trying', until eventually, the terror washed away from George's face, and the disapproving looks began, the ones that made Mitchell want to disappear into a confession box - if he could find one that wouldn't make him burst into flames at ten yards.

But in many ways, Mitchell felt that George sort of got it. He was aware of his own killing machine locked away inside of him gnawing to get out, and never wanted to be too judgmental for fear of the morning when he snuck home and put the washing machine on in the first dewy rays of the dawn.

Annie didn't get it. She wasn't like them. She'd been gentle in life and was gentle in death, afraid even to be aggressive towards her murderous lover. And she'd certainly never killed and couldn't even conceive of what having that desire, or carrying it out would be like. And that made Mitchell think that she thought less of him for it. However much she tried to be understanding of his condition, she was always going to judge him from a purely human standpoint, because dead or alive, she'd never been anything but human.

He made it to the hotel with the word 'human' rolling around in his head still. Human. Where they ever going to be that again? Could they? Or did he take a step away from it every time he killed, or sanctioned a killing.

He got in the lift and watched the numbers click up to his floor, glad to be in there alone with the whine of the cables and the empty mirrors. With a bing, his floor arrived, and he stepped out into the corridor, pushing open a fire door and counting along until he reached his suite.

Pausing only briefly outside, he swiped the card key and went in.

The TV was on, and the girl was sitting on the sofa, her body twisted over with what he presumed was tension. Annie was standing behind her looking out the window, but she turned as soon as the door opened, her face expectant and inquiring.

He ignored her and strode over to the girl, who looked like she was about to push herself to her feet. He sat down on the other sofa and looked at her.

"And are you smart, Jane?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean are you smart enough to know what happens if you go out from here and tell the world about us?"

She shrugged. "I've been tracking werewolves for three years now," she pointed out. "Try telling that one to a tabloid journalist and watch him trying to keep a straight face."

Mitchell considered that. "Alright then," he said.

"Did you kill him?" she asked curiously.

"No, I didn't," he shook his head, looking up and catching Annie's eye. She smiled slightly, looking relieved. He glanced away. "But let's just say he won't be doing any more experiments on anyone."

"Good." Her response was unexpected, but at his frown, she simply shrugged again. "Hunting werewolves," she said. "I have a PHD in biological research, and I've spent the last three years hunting werewolves. Moving on to torturing vampires wasn't part of the deal in my book."

"You let him do it," Mitchell pointed out. "You didn't leave."

"It was a job," she said, her eyes glazed. "He was, charismatic, whatever else you could say about him. He talked me into it, and once you were in, he wouldn't let you leave."

"Well," Mitchell said. "I'm going to let you leave. And maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should get rid of you as well. But then I'd have to do it to all of you."

"But the experiments," Annie said. "Won't there be records?

Jane nodded, her teeth finding a fragment of dry skin on her lip and gnawing it off. "Without the professor, the funding will fall apart and the research programme will break up. I'll see to it that the records disappear. Most of the people involved now don't know the truth about what they've been working with. He thought it was easier that way."

Annie looked confused. "You're amazingly willing to help us," she said. "How do we know that we can trust you?"

"You've no reason to," Jane said, turning to her. "But just because I was doing my job, doesn't mean that I liked it. What they used to do to the werewolves was beyond experiments. And I never quite got with the idea that they were just animals, the way he said. I haven't slept well in over two years. Maybe this will give me some peace."

Annie's expression clearly implied that she didn't believe her.

"I guess your other choice is to kill me," Jane pointed out. "Like all the others down in Bristol."

Annie looked uncomfortable. "It was the only way we could rescue George and Mitchell," she said. "And if we'd left it much longer, George would be dead now, so don't get all high and mighty about it!"

"Annie," Mitchell said quietly, drawing Jane's attention back to him. He fixed the girl with a look. "If I hear," he said. "Anything, and I mean anything about experiments, or mysterious cures for illnesses, or werewolves disappearing, I will come for you. You won't get a second chance."

She nodded, the fear in her eyes telling him that she understood.

"Get out," he said.

Jane glanced once more at Annie, then left the room without another word.

The door closed behind her with the smooth efficiency of something that was well cared for, and which knew that its users were paying over the odds for its utilisation. But neither Annie nor Mitchell noticed the oiled hinges. They had eyes suddenly for each other only, and as they held each other's gaze, the room filled with a silence so awkward, you could have given it braces, bad skin, and a copy of Twilight for its birthday.

"So," Annie blurted out eventually. "You didn't kill him?"

Mitchell shook his head, his eyes dropping under her scrutiny.

"Was that – wise," she questioned. "I mean that was what you came here to do –not that I'm in favour of – killing people."

"Arlie – " he stuttered as a sort of half-hearted explanation.

Her face fell slightly, but not hugely, as though the realisation wasn't such a shock. "Oh."

"It needed to be done, Annie," he said firmly. "He was…" he got to his feet. "In all my – I've lived a long time," he finally fixed on. "And in that time, I've known vampires do the most awful things – myself among them. But for vampires it's an instinct, it's an – an inbuilt thing that to overcome is torture. But for humans it's not a natural thing to be evil. The natural state for people is good. It takes an effort, misguided or guided by hate, by love by fear by – by stuff, but it's an effort. And once they've started down that road, they never come back. Never. Evil takes over the heart, it blackens it. He was torturing children in the name of science – in the name of progress! I couldn't let that go unanswered."

"No, of course not," she stammered. "I understand."

"Do you?" he looked at her earnestly, walking towards her. "Do you really?"

"Yeah – I think so. Evil. Bad. I can get down with that."

"Annie," he came right up to her. "Killing isn't easy for me anymore. I tried to stop for years, and I never made it, not fully. But since I met you and George, it's changed everything for me. I'm not saying I could never go back to what I was, but it's not natural anymore. I've broken the cycle."

"I know Mitchell," she said, smiling faintly. "I've seen it in you. And I've been so proud. I know it's not been easy."

He shrugged, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. "Easy is for losers," he said. This his expression changed. The humour faded. "I don't think I could have done it," he said softly. "Without you."

They were inches from each other now, in each other's space, the dead and the undead, both eternal, both alone, both forever.

He'd kissed her before, by accident, and never dreamed of doing it again. But here he was suddenly, his lips on hers. He felt the icey chill, the soft nothingness of her, and he lost himself briefly, felt the world fall away, all his worries and fears and loneliness.

Then they drew apart, both smiling, neither saying anything. No words were needed now. And they kissed again.


	13. Chapter 13

Mitchell drew a strand back from Annie's face, watching how the mid-morning sun played on her skin. Her eyes followed him, watching every movement he made, drinking him in.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked.

"Hungry?"

"Yes, I believe breakfast is traditional in most parts of the world that have food and mornings."

He smiled. "You're very thoughtful for someone who hasn't eaten in two years."

"Well, I'm a thoughtful kind of gal," she said.

"I suppose I could get room service or something," he said, rolling over in the bed and glancing at the clock. It read 10.25. "Arlie's paying after all."

"Where is Arlie, do you think?" she wondered.

"God knows," he said, collapsing back onto the pillows. "Enjoying Scottish hospitality somewhere, perhaps."

She pushed herself up on an elbow. "Do you miss being like him?"

"Like what?"

"A free spirit? Killing whenever you want, not caring about the consequences?"

"Nah," he said.

"What, really?"

"There are other things," he said. "I've done that life, I did it for a long time. I don't want to spend the rest of eternity being that person."

She looked down at him sadly. " I don't want to spend the rest of eternity being alone," she confessed.

"You won't be," Mitchell said with sincerity. "I'll never leave you Annie. Not while you have need of me. You can be anything you want now, like me. You're free. You can go anywhere, meet anyone. You have the whole world."

A smile spread across her face. "I love you, Mitchell."

He smirked. "Yeah, I know."

"Git!" she exclaimed, hitting him in the face with a pillow.

"What!" he exclaimed back. "I'm very lovable."

"Well lovable man, isn't it time we should be getting up?"

Annie stretched and sat up in the bed, her top dripping down her shoulder. "Mmm," she moaned. "Part of me doesn't want to go back to Bristol," she admitted.

"Really?"

"Well, it's like my life almost stopped there, well it did stop there. And now I'm out. There's just so much out there to experience, isn't there. I hadn't realised how closed in I'd become. How parochial."

"Why don't you go then?"

"What?"

"Take off? Not forever. Bu you could travel round Scotland or something, and then come back when you're ready."

She looked away from him, thinking. It wasn't something she'd ever even considered before. But it wasn't impossible.

"Would you – come with me?" she asked.

"Possibly," he hedged.

"But what about George," she backtracked quickly. "We can't leave him."

"Ah, he's got Nina. He's not on his own any more."

"Okay. Well – well – maybe. Yeah. Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Let's – let's spend the day here anyway, and I'll think about it."

He smiled, recognising her cautious nature coming out. "Okay." He levered himself upwards as well. "But breakfast sounds good right now. Wasn't there a menu somewhere?" He looked around.

"Uh, yeah, it's in the other room I think," Annie said, getting up and trying to sort her wayward hair in front of a large wall mirror.

Mitchell staggered to his feet, the thought of a filling, carb-filled breakfast giving him the energy he needed to make it to the joining room of their suite. As he passed the sofa, he saw his jacket and noticed a flashing light from the pocket. He frowned, fishing out his mobile which had a missed call on it, and dialling his answer machine as he nabbed the menu off the table and slumped in the couch.

As he began to choose between eggs Benedict and kippers, a computerised voice told him that he had one message.

"_To listen to your messages, press one_."

Beep.

Or maybe kedgeree. Curried fish and rice sounded like something he really had to try once in his life.

"_Mitchell? Mitchell it's George. Look, I need your help. I've – I've been arrested. It's a long story, but I need you to come and bail me out, okay. Please can you come as soon as possible. I don't know what to do. Just come, okay. Speak to you later." _

Beep.

"_To repeat the message press one. To save the message press two…."_

The menu dropped from his hand.

"Annie!"

---

Five minutes of frantic footwear finding, bag packing, and general chaos later, and the two of them were out the door. Annie had listened to the message twice now, and Mitchell had run it through again himself just to make sure that he hadn't slipped through a wormhole and heard a completely random message that the space time continuum had accidentally recorded on his mobile instead of the one George had really left which was about running out of washing up liquid and deciding that they were switching to Ecover whether Mitchell liked it or not.

Sadly, the message was the same however many times he played it.

"_Mitchell? Mitchell it's George. Look, I need your help…" _

"He sounds pretty upset," Annie said, the phone to her ear, the message playing again.

"Well, yeah," Mitchell said, watching the lift numbers light up in ascending order. It seemed a reasonable assumption.

"And where's Nina?" Annie wondered. "Why can't she bail him out?"

"I don't know," he said, eyes still fixed as the lift halted two floors down.

Annie put the phone down, pressing the end call button. "Unless she was arrested too." She drew in a sudden breath that made him turn to her, his frazzled nerves unable to cope with any unexpected noise like that. "It was a wolf night last night," she exclaimed. "What if they were both discovered, Mitchell! What if they…" she broke off, her voice dropping to a whisper. "What if they killed someone?"

"Let's not assume the worst until we have to," Mitchell advised, sighing in relief when the lift doors finally opened in front of them. They both got in. "We've still got a long journey ahead of us."

"Are we going to tell Arlie?"

"If we can find him in the next 15 minutes before the train leaves, then yeah. Otherwise, I'll just send him a text or something. It'll be fine. I think he likes it up here anyway."

"I don't understand why you won't let me just try and teleport us both back," she protested.

He glanced at her: "Have you ever done it with an actual person before?"

"Well no."

"There you go then."

"But you're not a person, Mitchell," he glowered at her. "I mean, obviously you're a person, but you're not an alive person. You're a dead person. It's not like I could kill you."

"Let's just check out," he said. "I'm happy to try a bit of teleporting or whatever, if we get into difficulties. But for now, I just want to concentrate on getting back to Bristol as quickly as we can."

---

It took two trains in the end, the two of them sitting close together. To anyone passing by, they would have looked like any other couple. Holding hands sometimes, glancing awkwardly at each other, then away, neither of them eating, barely talking. There was nothing to suggest their otherworldly nature to the casual observer, nothing to suggest they were anything other than human.

They got stuck in York for too long for Mitchell's liking, and he squirmed awkwardly on the seat as staff told them nothing repeatedly for an hour. Then they got stuck again near Cheltenham Spa, close enough to Bristol for Annie to try a short teleport with them both.

It worked, sort of, Mitchell throwing up when they re-emerged, and acting drunk for a good 15 minutes after that.

All the travel meant that it was nearly 7 o clock by the time they got to the police station. And George wasn't there.

"Well, where is he?" Mitchell demanded of the burly looking officer behind the Perspex.

"Bail was posted three hours ago," the woman said curtly. "That's all I'm able to tell you. Sir." The last word was clearly forced out without much enthusiasm.

Mitchell felt like slamming the desk in frustration, but knowing that it would probably get him arrested in turn, he managed to pull himself away and meet Annie outside.

"Well, he's not answering his phone," she said. "And he's not in the house."

"He could be anywhere," Mitchell complained. "And who posted bail for him?"

"Nina?" Annie wondered.

"It's possible I suppose. Juliet Bravo in there wouldn't even tell me what the charges were. He could have been picked up for speeding for all we know."

"He doesn't have a car Mitchell."

"He could have taken mine."

"And this is George we're talking about."

"Fair point," he said. Then threw his hands up. "Well I'm at a loss," he exclaimed. "Hundreds of fucking miles and it's all been for nothing!"

"Maybe they'd know at the hospital?" Annie suggested. "If he was supposed to be working today, they may have heard from him."

"Good idea," Mitchell shrugged. "Worth a shot anyway."


	14. Chapter 14

An ambulance was just pulling out as they arrived, sirens starting up with a long slow breath.

Annie shivered, remembering coming here when the boys had disappeared, when her hope had gone, and the world had begun to fade around her.

Mitchell had taken a few steps forward before he realized she was no longer at his side, and he turned. "What's up?"

"Nothing," she threw it off. "Come on, let's go in."

He put his arm round her, squeezing her close and squeezing a smile from her wan face as they walked in through the automatic doors.

They went quickly to the main desk. "Hey – Shirley," Mitchell pulled the name out of god-knows where. "Have you seen George tonight?"

She looked at him from behind the glass. "George Sands?" she said, sounding muffled through the speaker. "He's still up with that nurse he's dating I think."

Mitchell and Annie looked at each other.

"What do you mean 'still' up with Nina?" Mitchell asked.

"She broke something, came in this morning, arm I think." The lady turned to her colleague who was going through some files. "James, that nurse who works in geriatrics, what did she break? Was it her arm?"

"Haven't the foggiest," the man said without even looking up.

Shirley turned back, rolling her eyes. "Well she broke something anyway, and I haven't seen her discharged so I'm guessing they're keeping her in. Christ knows why. I wouldn't want to stay in this place any longer than I had to."

"Okay, thanks," Mitchell and Annie were already making to leave.

"Third floor," Shirley called after them.

They practically ran at a flat-out sprint down the first corridor, ignoring the lift (Mitchell had seen enough of lifts recently, and instinctively couldn't bare the thought of getting stuck in an old, rusty one) and taking the stairs pantingly, two at a time for some of the way, and then a staggered one by one when that became too much somewhere around the end of the first floor.

"Jesus!" Annie exclaimed. "This is why I like teleporting."

"Yeah, you'll have to teach me that sometime," Mitchell gasped, pulling open the stairwell door, and pushing her out onto the third floor.

Trying to get their breaths back, the looked about for a familiar face.

Then suddenly, Mitchell grabbed Annie and pulled her back a bit in the corridor against the wall. "Is that…?" He peered out trying to get a better look at the person he'd seen sitting on a chair further down the hallway without making it incredibly obvious that he was trying to see without being seen. "Is that George's ex-fiancée?" He turned back to Annie, incredulous.

She snuck out for a peek. "Oh my God!" she hissed. "I think you're right!"

"Well what the hell's she doing here?"

"I don't know," Annie shot back. "Bet you it's got something to do with all this, though."

"Do you remember her name?" Mitchell asked.

By the expression on her face, Annie clearly didn't. "Uh, oh – what was it?"

"I dunno," Mitchell said. "I'm never good with names."

"Did it begin with a J?" Annnie asked suddenly.

"Could have."

"Okay," she began to list girls names. "Jane – uh – Janet – uh – Jacobah…"

He gave her a scathing look. "Jacobah?"

"It's a name," she protested.

"In this country?" he said, then had his own revelation. His eyes widened. "Juliet?"

"Julia!" Annie cried, triumphant, causing of course, Julia to raise her head and look in their direction.

Caught out and not fast enough to get out of sight, the two had to accept her scrutiny and made their way down the corridor towards her, plastering happy looks on their faces.

"I wonder if she'll recognise us," Annie muttered.

"Yes, given that we're both dead, immortal and likely to have changed significantly in the last 2 years," Mitchell muttered back.

"Hello?" Julia said, as they came up. Then recognition flooded across her face like sunlight hitting a wall on a spring morning. "Oh, you're, you're George's friends. You're the…" she indicated Annie, but didn't finish her sentence. "And you're the…" she said to Mitchell, also breaking off.

"Yeah, we're the - unmentionables," Mitchell said dryly. "Julia, what are you doing here? Have you seen George?"

"He's," wide-eyed, she glanced over her shoulder. "He's in with Nina."

"Is she okay?" Annie asked.

"As far as I know, it's not serious, not life-threatening or anything," she said, then caught Annie's eye. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

Annie just grinned. "Don't be silly," she said. "Dead references I'm fine with."

"How was she hurt, do you know?" Mitchell asked, walking past her a couple of paces to see if he could get a look into the room she'd indicated, but he couldn't.

"I don't know," she confessed. "He wouldn't tell me in the car."

"Car?"

"From the police station. You do know he was arrested?"

"Yeah, he left me a message, that's why we're here. How do you know?"

"He phoned me as well. I posted bail. But I think they've dropped the charges now anyway."

"What charges?" Mitchell exclaimed. "What was he arrested for?"

"Look," her body language screamed awkward. "Maybe you should ask him that."

"Sure," he said, happy to be turning away from her.

Annie for her part was more sympathetic, giving Julia a quick hug before following him.

She joined Mitchell at the door of the room. Inside on the bed, Nina was asleep, looking small and delicate. The puddle of a bruise seeped across her closed eyelid, and her forehead was bandaged. One arm was wrapped in a sling and rested across her chest. Beside her on the bed, George was folded carefully around her, protectively, his eyes also closed.

Mitchell reached up and tapped lightly on the glass, not expecting any reaction, but was rewarded instantly with George lifting his head from the pillow and looking towards them.

They both held up their hands in silent greeting, and he gave them a resigned smile. He leaned down and kissed Nina lightly, then carefully extracted himself from the bed without waking her. He pushed his way through the door, looking rumpled and creased.

"Hey," he said quietly.

Annie enfolded him in a hug, and he squeezed her gratefully. Mitchell settled for putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You alright man?"

"Well, I've had better days," he admitted.

"You want to get some coffee?" the vampire asked, firmly believing in the healing powers of the bean, whatever the situation.

"Sure," he said, glancing back at Nina's sleeping form. "She'll be fine as long as we're not gone too long."

"Sure," Mitchell said, moving out the way.

George turned to go, then stopped still, as Mitchell's change of position had brought Julia into view.

The other two saw his face tighten, and he turned swiftly, walking the other way along the corridor. Mitchell and Annie shared a look, then followed him, Mitchell frowning slightly as he noticed the fresh stitches in the back of George's head. What the hell had been going on for the past two days? .

None of them talked en route to the cafe, Mitchell biting back on his impatience and curiosity until they were all sitting round a table, their hands curled around three polystyrene cups of coffee, even Annie had one (she'd insisted on 'fitting in' given the surroundings).

George looked down glumly at his, not even attempting to drink it.

Eventually Mitchell could stand it no longer.

"So what happened?" he asked. "Why were you arrested? And why do you have stitches in your head?"

"Mitchell!" Annie protested. "Let him tell the story in his own time!"

"If we let him do that, we could be here all night," Mitchell pointed out.

George sighed at his criticism and leaned forwards. "We had a fight," he said.

"What?" Mitchell was surprised. "Who did? You and Nina?"

"Was this over Julia?" Annie put in, hoping their guesswork might make things easier.

He nodded, not looking at them. "Julia came to dinner yesterday and things got a bit emotional. After she left, Nina and I fought about it. It got quite heated."

"And you broke her arm?" Mitchell exclaimed incredulously.

George's response out-decibelled him easily. "Of course I didn't!" he screeched.

"Then what happened?"

George sighed dramatically, and pushed his cup away. "She was like that when I woke up this morning," he said. "We went to the room and we were still fighting, but we had the gate shut between us. We changed, and when I woke up afterwards, she was unconscious, and there was all this blood on her face."

"God," Annie said sympathetically. "Do you think the wolves got in together somehow? That you fought?"

George shook his head emphatically. "No the door between us was still firmly locked," he said. "But it was – damaged, bent, like something heavy had impacted upon it. I think – I think her wolf tried to get at mine while we were transformed, because she was so angry at me."

"Because of Julia," Mitchell broke in.

He nodded. "She was pissed because – well, lots of reasons. Mostly because I hadn't told her I think."

"You didn't tell her you were engaged before?" Annie exclaimed.

"Well how was I to know they would ever meet?" he protested. "I didn't think I'd ever see Julia again after that morning. I didn't think she'd come back."

"What did you do?"

"I got dressed, I tried to help her," he said. "But when she wouldn't wake up, I just picked her up and took her to A&E."

"How did you explain it?"

"I said she'd fallen down the stairs," he said sadly, looking at Annie.

She smiled faintly, and reached out to put her hand over his.

"So why were you arrested?" Mitchell was starting to get confused now.

"Well what I didn't tell you is that we were attacked by vampires the day before yesterday," he said.

"What?"

"Yeah, right outside the hospital, cheeky bastards! They gave her a right smack, that's where she got the black eye from, and where I got the stitches and a bloody headache. But obviously two injuries in two days flags up some kind of warning in the system, or maybe we've just got really over-reaching staff in this hospital, I don't know," George said. "All I do know is that one moment I'm sitting there with her tearing my hair out with worrying about if she's going to be okay, the next hospital security is in the room asking me to leave."

"I'm guessing you didn't take that very well?" Mitchell said.

George looked a little sheepish. "I hit one of them," he admitted. "They just wouldn't listen!" he protested. "And I was so worried about her and worked up. There they were dragging me away, like I was the one who'd broken her collar bone and bashed her face in! I kept telling them it wasn't me, and that I needed to stay with her, but nothing went in. So I tried to fight them off, and one of them just got hit somehow. I don't even remember doing it, it just happened. And of course, that looked even worse."

"Jesus," Mitchell exclaimed. "That's just – how could they treat you like that?"

"Well they have to be careful," Annie said, acting devil's advocate. "In case he had actually hurt her."

"Yeah, but he didn't though, did he, Annie. And they know him here. They know he wouldn't do that."

"Nobody knows what goes on in a relationship when it's behind closed doors," she said frankly, making the two of them uncomfortable, knowing that she was referring to Owen.

Mitchell decided to stay well away from that one, and turned back to the werewolf. "So how did it work out?" he asked.

"I got locked up," George continued his story. "I rang you, you weren't there, I managed to get another phone call, so I took a chance that Julia was still in town and rang her. She came and posted my bail about 3 o clock or so. When I got back to the hospital, Nina was already awake."

"How had she explained her injuries?"

"She just said she couldn't remember what happened. But I believe they dropped the battered woman thing right around the time she threatened to stick the 'abusive partner' leaflet she was being offered right up some doctor's arse. Nobody's said anything about it since then, so I guess they've given up on the idea. And I apologised to the security guard, so I think he's going to drop the assault charge. He said he knew how I felt."

"Which one was it?"

"That dark haired guy with the big mouth? Looks like he could eat an entire donut in a oner."

"Oh him, he's a laugh. Yeh, you don't need to worry about him."

"So you're okay now?" Annie wondered, concerned.

He smiled at her. "Doing better," he said. "Just frustrated. It never seems to end. If it's not vampires it's old boyfriends or girlfriends or some other crap. When do we get a break? When do we get to have a normal life? Oh, how did your slaying of the mad scientist go anyway?"

"Fine," Mitchell and Annie said at almost exactly the same time. Then they looked acutely embarrassed, glanced at each other like a pair of guilty teenagers, and tried to cover it up by babbling.

"He's all dealt with, so nothing to worry about there," Mitchell said.

"And Mitchell was really well behaved," Annie put in. "Didn't kill anyone or anything."

"And Edinburgh was nice."

"It really was actually," Annie agreed. "I've never been, and it was just really – nice."

"Yeah, nice."

"And the train journey, phew!" Annie said. "Don't even get me started on the…" she cleared her throat. "Yeah, well…"

George looked between then, his face creasing in confusion, his lips open to ask a question.

Then he shut his mouth. They all had secrets, all of them. They were all creatures of darkness and unpredictability. If something had happened in Edinburgh that they didn't want him to know about, then he'd just have to live with that until they changed their minds. Whatever it was, he hoped it was good for them. In fact, judging by the way they were trying not to look at each other, and the fact that Annie was blushing, it looked like it had been very good for them.

He hid his smile by picking up his neglected coffee cup, and taking a sip of the tepid liquid, grimacing. Anyway, he had enough to think about with Nina.

"When will they discharge her?" Mitchell asked.

"Tomorrow probably. She's fine really, they just wanted to make sure, y'know with the head injury and everything."

"And you? Stitches?"

He nodded, his hand going to the hard little bumps. "Bottle to the head," he said. "I got three of them though."

"You 'got' three of them?" Mitchell said incredulously. "Jesus, George, you couldn't even handle Lauren when she attacked you a year ago, now you're getting three of them?"

"Yeah, well Lauren wasn't hurting Nina was she. It's amazing what an incentive that can be. But we wouldn't have gotten out of it, I don't think, if it hadn't been for the chaplain."

"What the skinny guy with the red hair?"

"He saved us," George expounded. "Or according to Nina he did anyway, I was too busy bleeding on the floor to notice."

Mitchell blew out a surprised breath. "Well, good for him. But I'll have to have a word with those bastards. I explicitly told them to leave you alone."

"Clearly your influence is far reaching and respected," George said, his sarcasm proving that he was starting to feel more like his old self.

Mitchell smiled.

"We were so worried about you," Annie told him, squeezing his hand.

"Yeah, she thought you'd eaten someone," Mitchell dropped in, picking up his cup.

"Mitchell!" she protested in a harsh whisper. He just shrugged.

"Well, it's not out of the question," George said resignedly.

Annie looked at him with sympathy. "What are you going to do about Julia?"

"I dunno," he admitted. "I suppose I should talk to her."

Mitchell was curious. "And you really don't know why she's come back?"

George sighed. "She wanted us to get back together," he confessed.

"Seriously!" Mitchell said. "After what she did to you, did she seriously think you'd go back to her?"

"I didn't exactly treat her like a fairy princess," George defended his ex reluctantly. "And this situation hasn't been easy on anyone. But I've told her I'm with Nina and I'm not going back."

"Would you?" Annie wondered. "If you could? Would you go back?"

George tilted his coffee cup, considering the question. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Would you, if you could go back to your old life?"

Annie looked surprised at the question, as though the very idea had never occurred to her. "I'm not sure," she said, slightly uncomfortably and glancing at Mitchell. "I suppose a lot of my life before this was – well pretty much a lie, and I was just getting on with things without thinking about them. But, what we have now seems to work for me. It would be nice not to be dead, of course," she smiled. "But, if this hadn't happened, I would never have met you two, and I don't think I'd have ever really appreciated the important things, y'know? I would have just gone on. And Owen was never going to be right, and if he'd left, there might have been another Owen and more misery. I was just living in a dream world. And somehow, it's only now that I've woken up."

George nodded. "Yeah," he said, then they both looked at Mitchell.

"What?"

"Would you go back?"

Mitchell thought for precisely 10 seconds about what he'd been before Herrick: scared, lonely, ignorant. Innocent. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips. "In a heartbeat," he said.

The other two looked uncomfortable for a second.

"Look," Annie said to George. "You go and talk to Julia. We'll sit with Nina."

"Really?" he said gratefully.

"Sure," she said. "You go, we'll be up in a few minutes.

"Thanks," he said. His eyes wandered to Mitchell's face, but getting no response, he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

Annie turned on Mitchell the moment he was gone. "What was that?" she demanded.

"What?" he said.

"That you'd go back? In a heartbeat?"

"He asked me a question," Mitchell said stonily. "I answered it honestly."

"So you'd rather all this hadn't happened to you?"

"That's right," he said, then finally looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Jesus Annie, I don't mean you and me! I mean everything I've done! I'd love to go back to the man I was, to have – died when it was my time rather than to have drifted throughout the 20th century like some minor celebrity that keeps popping up in the tabloids when you think they've finally been put to rest. I have killed hundreds of people and that's never going to be right. I'm not like you and George."

"Yeah, you're just an old cynic," Annie said grumpily, resting her head on her hands.

Mitchell watched her, a small smile playing on his lips.

"But it doesn't mean I can't appreciate what I do have," he said.

That perked her up. "Really?"

"Really," he confirmed.

"Oh, well – that's better," she said.

"Yeah," he was grinning now.

"So," she toyed with her full coffee cup. "What do you have?"

His grin widened. "I have you," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She looked up and met his eye, blushing and smiling like a teenager who'd finally managed to gain the attention of the neighbourhood hunk. "So, are we – going to tell George?"

Mitchell sat back in his chair. "I have a feeling he might already know," he said, looking over at the door, as if expecting George to be standing there giving him the thumbs up. He wasn't.

"Really?"

"What, the way we kept it together when he'd asked how our trip went? He may be the most socially inept man I know, but he's not completely blind."

"Well, we should tell him," Annie said. "That it's not what he thinks. I mean it's not like we can… you know… I mean it's not like that."

Mitchell closed his eyes and shook his head. "It doesn't matter what he thinks, Annie. Let's just be content, okay. Nobody's died. Today," he added. "We're still together. The world is still turning."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "How about that."


	15. Chapter 15

George was watching Nina like a hawk. With nothing for him to do, his hands were fiddling with his glasses, shaking slightly with nerves and anticipation, looking down and then looking up again.

Eventually he could stand it no more.

"Well?" he said.

"Just a minute," she said, in a long drawn-out manner that meant she wasn't giving him her full attention.

He puffed out his cheeks in frustration, and looked at the ceiling. A couple of dirty looking spider's webs were clinging to the wall just above one of the bookcases. He would have to get the feather duster out and attack them later. Or did they have a feather duster? He was fairly sure that he'd been going to get one, but Mitchell had refused because it was just 'too damned girly'. Hm. Maybe he could use a duster on a stick.

"Okay," Nina said with finality, laying the letter down in her lap and putting her hand down on top of it. "Finished."

George forgot the spider's webs instantly. "Well?" he asked again. "What did you think?"

"Well," she hedged, waggling her head from side to side and watching his face fall, comically. She smiled. "I think it's amazing," she admitted.

Relief flooded over him. "Really? I mean, genuinely, you're not just saying that?"

"I'm not just saying that," she confirmed. "If I were a mother and I received this letter from a son I thought was dead, I'd be over the moon."

"Really? He said again, reaching over and taking the letter from her, scanning through the impossibly neat handwriting. "I mean it's not too – I thought it was a bit sentimental."

"Not in the least, she reassured him. "It's perfectly pitched, it explains why you left without telling her the actual reason why, and should convey your passion in keeping away enough to prevent her from coming looking for you. I think she'll be overjoyed."

George glanced up at her, his eyes red. "Thank you," he whispered. "You understand, don't you, why I haven't done this before?"

She nodded. "I really do, George. But I think you're right to do it now. I'll give it to that guy James who's going to London next week. He said he'd post it no trouble, so she won't be able to trace you back to Bristol. And if you're convinced that Julia won't give you away."

He shrugged. "I have to trust her," he said. "And to her credit, she hasn't said anything so far."

"Then you should be fine," Nina said.

George sighed in relief, then the phone started to ring.

"Thanks," he said, getting up and putting his glasses back on. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"What are girlfriends for?" Nina intoned, leaning back on the couch and shifting slightly at the twinge in her shoulder.

George picked the phone up. "Hello? Oh hey!" He turned to Nina and mouthed. 'It's Annie."

She nodded.

"How's Paris, cosmopolitan girl?"

"It's incredible George!" Annie said back. "Really, I think this might be the most beautiful city in the world."

"Really?"

"Yeah, there's just so many beautiful buildings. And oh my god, the art, George, it's incredible! We went to the Louvre today, and it's just – wow, I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful it is."

"Oh that's great. And how's Mitchell getting on?"

"Fine. He keeps trying to take me to these old haunts of his from the 1940s, and of course, none of them are there! And he keeps moaning about all the garlic everywhere. It's really funny! But we're having such a good time. How are you two?"

"Good, fine. Nothing out of the ordinary going on here at all. What's the weather like there?"

"Sunny sometimes, raining at other times. But it's fine, there's just so much to do. Oh, damn it, look, my money's almost out already. But I just wanted to let you two know we were okay."

"Alright, well, thanks for calling. And enjoy the rest of your trip."

"Will do. We'll be back Thursday I think. Going up the Eiffel Tower tomorrow!"

"Well, a bien tot!" he said.

"Bye!"

The line went dead.

"That was a quick conversation," Nina pointed out.

"I think she was on a pay phone," George said, replacing the handset. "But she said they were having a good time."

"Hm," said Nina. "Paris is the city of love after all."

"Absolutely," he said, coming over and flopping down on the couch beside her. He put his arm carefully around her, mindful of her still-tender injury, and gave her a quick kiss.

She nestled into him, feeling content, then suddenly sat up. "Oh," she said, "I nearly forgot. I got you something." She reached down under the couch, and pulled out an object wrapped in gold-coloured paper. She handed it to him. "Happy birthday," she said.

His face melted. "Oh Nina, you didn't have to do that."

"I know," she said. "And I know it's, what, three weeks late now, but I still think it's something that needs to be marked. Whatever your life, George. Everyone needs a birthday."

He kissed her. "Thank you."

"Well, open it then."

He turned the parcel over, and got his hand into the gap between the folds of the paper, pulling them apart with a satisfied ripping sound. Inside was a photo album.

"Aw, Nina," he said, and opened the first page. Inside were a few pictures of the two of them, some together, some apart. They were sweet, candid. They looked so happy.

"It's – so you never forget me – or us really," she explained. "Your past, George. You have to remember. And we'll fill this up over the years, all the things we do together, so that we'll never forget."

He felt the weight of it in his hands suddenly increase, as if instead of a photo album, he was holding their lives, and possibilities and dreams.

He looked at her, and their eyes met.

"You know when Julia was here," she said. "And we were waiting for her to come that night. You said to me that you would always be here for me. And while I believe you, George, I believe that you mean it, you can't ever say that. Nothing in this world lasts forever, and we're not exactly living what you might call a normal life."

He smiled at that, sadly. It was hard to argue.

"But what we'll always have is our memories," she said. "And I want to remember. I want to remember all of it, every time we've fought, every transformation, every time we've made love, it's all part of me now, as you are part of me. I don't want to forget that. And I don't want you to forget."

George gazed down at the photo album between his hands, feeling its slightly squishy cover give beneath his fingers. "Okay," he agreed. "That I can promise." He looked back up at her. "I do love you, you know."

"I know," she said. "And I love you." She smiled coyly. "I don't think my wolf likes you very much though."

"Ah, it'll come round," George said breezily. "I have a way with animals, you know."

"Yeah, mostly involving ripping them to pieces and then eating them," she mocked.

"Oh really!" he shot back. "Like you're a gentle pussy cat when the moon's full!"

"I happen to think that given the right conditions my wolf would be perfectly domesticated," she said.

"Nina," he countered, leaning forward to kiss her. "Shut up!"

Fin


End file.
